


The Tower, Reversed

by magicmads17



Category: Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, But I take some liberties, Canon Divergent, Completed, Consensual Sex, Everyone Needs A Hug, Everyone Needs Therapy, Explicit Language, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Freeform, LSF exile - Freeform, Mention of torture, Non-Explicit Sex, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Hatred, The Force is a Bitch, Violence, allusion to suicide, atton as a grey jedi no matter what, atton has anxiety, atton rand being so very interesting in his own way, casual mention of pegging, follows canon for the most part, revan is an asshole but only kinda, this started as headcanons and it grew into this monstrosity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:13:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 25,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25234477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicmads17/pseuds/magicmads17
Summary: What began as a simple list of headcanons about Atton, became this glorious dissertation. An in-depth character study of Atton, beginning at the beginning and ending far past the end of canon. LSF Exile/Atton, LSF Revan/Carth, with a dash of Visas/Mira.Completed.Version 1.01- Formatting has been fixed, and chapters have been edited for clarity and errors. I have also added a missing chapter that I just apparently. Didn't add. lmao.
Relationships: Female Jedi Exile/Atton "Jaq" Rand, The Jedi Exile/Atton "Jaq" Rand, Visas Marr/Mira, mentioned sion/exile
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome to this glorious, glorious mess. 
> 
> I love Atton Rand with my entire heart and soul and spent way too long on this. 
> 
> Thank you for reading, and hope you enjoy. Comment, if you feel inclined.
> 
> EDIT- I have fixed some of the formatting mistakes, the spelling errors and generally cleaned up everything for clarity. I even apparently didn't add a whole ass chapter in the end, there lmao. I'm rather dyslexic and computer screens don't help that, especially with tired eyes and this particular font lol. Please let me know if you find any other errors, and I'll correct them!

In the beginning, everything is in limbo. 

Peragus is a nightmare to begin with, then she comes along in nothing but her damned underwear and releases him, which was good, don’t get him wrong. But something about her seemed off, like he’s about to be swept up into far more that he’s bargained for and part of him really doesn’t want to get involved with a Jedi of all people, but he’s desperate and more than a little horny, and she’s stunning and keeps claiming to be an ex-Jedi, so he may have a chance. And besides, she’s his only hope to get off this rock. 

She runs off, and then an old crone Jedi appears with her when she returns. His skin bristles and he turns on his defenses fully. Every ounce of his being screams to get as far away from the old woman as possible, but he needs to get out of here, especially with that giant ship looming- the likes of which he is familiar with and he knows not to cross.

He cannot get caught by them, not if he wants to stay alive. 

He stays with the two Jedi, much against his better judgement, but they make it off the rock. 

On Telos, he watches her more than anything, feeling drawn to her for some reason other than the usual physical draw that he always tends to have when attractive people are around him. She just helps people… And he can’t rationalize why, in this cesspool of a galaxy, someone would give up credits, time for strangers. It’s eat or be eaten, kill or be killed, and yet- she’s helping an innocent man escape thugs, she’s releasing a slave, she’s paying off people’s debts-- 

And she glows with kindness. 

When they crash land on the surface and meet the Zabrak, Bao Durr, she is revealed to be a General who sided with Revan. Atton might have guessed that she was some sort of residual from the war, but he wasn’t sure up until now where exactly she fit in. And now he knows where to pinpoint her in everything. 

She elects to take him and Bao to try to find her ship, leaving Kreia to rest. Atton is surprised- usually Jedi like to stick to their own, but both of them seem different, darker. He watches her closely, especially while she fights. She moves with precision and power that he hasn’t seen up close before. He makes a mental note that she always has a small opening in her attacks, one that not many would see, but he does. 

He notices that Bao is a good team member- leaving him openings to shoot at the droids they find and covering for both him and the Exile. It’s not something Atton is used to, but he doesn’t mind, especially when it prevents the both of them from getting shot.

They’re eventually captured by Atris. The Witch threatens Atton for the second time, this time tearing into his mind against his will and into things he wishes will never see the light of day. There, the agreement is made, and Atton is safe, for now. 

He hates the fucking Witch, and hates everything that she says with his entire being. 

They escape, the Exile asks him about his Echani training, as they leave the Atris’ hostile Jedi pit. He bristles, and lies, it’s just to prevent fights, you know, trying to be nonchalant about everything, but there's a residual anger that tends to bubble up when people get too close to things he doesn't want to say, doesn't want anyone to know. She backs off, saying that it’s an asset, if he has it. 

She walks off, deeper into the ship, and he smiles, despite himself, and despite the Witch’s words echoing in his mind. The Exile has clearly not given up on knowing, but he likes that she knows when to not press the issue. She's really something else, the likes of which he can't say he's ever really encountered. She's intriguing in so many ways, and she’s shown him something practically unheard of in his current life- loyalty.


	2. II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i do know that the Enclave doesn't have Kinraths but I couldn't remember what the other nasties were called.

On the way to the next planet, he asks Bao about her- wondering if he knows anything about her and whether or not he has a chance-

“She was a general, I was just a tech, your guess is as good as mine.” 

“Yeah, but what do you think-”

“You’re serious.” Bao laughs at him. Atton’s face reddens, much more than it ever has in a very long time. He scurries back to the cockpit, Bao’s amusement echoing in the halls.

“Bao, what was all that about?” The Exile calls, as Atton speeds past, never one to let a joke pass by without sharing in it, even if the emptiness within her doesn’t allow her to laugh. Atton feels his insides tense up. Bao’d better not say anything--

“Oh, he just tried to fix a power coupling on the ship and it electrocuted him.” 

With that, Atton knew he could trust Bao marginally more than most people. He would perhaps even initiate a game of pazaak with him later, if time allowed.

They travel to Dantooine next, which makes his skin crawl. Anything having to do with the damned Jedi… She takes him with her, even though he seethes with quiet resentment the entire time. When he isn’t quiet- he’s making quips about little things, not enough to piss her off too overtly, but he cannot find it in himself to keep too quiet about his distaste for the place. That, and it’s the best defense mechanism he has.

And it’s one of his quips that allows him to see her laugh for the first time, well, her and Bao, as it was mostly the three of them these days, the Exile electing to leave the Witch on the ship to meditate, or something. The Exile seems to regard Kreia with respect, but is weary of her, too. 

They walk into the now nearly destroyed enclave, Atton sees the nasty kinraths swarming about, one eating off the head of a dead kinrath in the dust and rubble, then plopping on the floor with a tiny belch. 

“Ah, I didn’t think we’d be seeing any of the Jedi council today.” he can’t stop himself, the words tumble out before he can stop them, his feet continuing to move as they pass.

The Exile snorts, and he learns today that she has a very similar sense of humor. Bao cracks a smile despite himself, mostly at seeing the Exile laugh than anything. For once, the suffocating cloud of seriousness surrounding them dissipates and they can collectively almost breathe. 

Bao dryly cocks an eyebrow. “At least they smell better than you do.” The Exile laughs harder, alerting the nearest nasties to come and attack them.

Atton feigns offense. He smells better than he has in a long time, thank you very much.. “Hey!” And the fight begins. 

The Exile is still laughing when it’s over, clearly embarrassed that she’s still the only one laughing but unable to stop, as people who are either overtired or haven’t laughed in a very long, long time often do (or both, in her case, he thinks to himself- the circles under her eyes and the lines on her face remind him of the officers, the generals he served under. None slept, after a certain point, and it showed in the sallow yellow of their skin, the dark circles, the red eyes, the inhuman voices they used to command-- no. Pazaak. List the hyperlanes. Forget.). 

He doesn't forget the quirky radiance of her boisterous laughter, even when they pick up the Republic boy scout from the library, much to his distaste. 

(Atton would rather personally bite off the head of a kinrath than take this… this infuriatingly perfect boy scout with them.)

((even the way the Disciple breathes makes Atton want to shoot him on-sight. But he doesn’t. He does, however, make sure that he knows just how little Atton cares for him. Maybe it’ll hurt his feelings and he’ll leave them all alone for good. There’s no room for optimism on this crew, much less someone who’s obsessed with the Exile. But the boy scout stays. Atton barely tolerates him. The Exile actually pays him mind, listening to what he has to say and learning new things. Makes Atton instantly grab for his blaster and think of the quickest ways to shut the boy scout up permanently.)) 

So they move on, and help Khoonda out with their merc problem, and the Exile gets some sort of pet rock-crystal-thing, and Kreia talks to her through the Force, which neither Bao nor him can hear and it’s really weird to have her answering nothing, but they soon realize what’s going on. 

(“Yeah, this place… it feels strange.” “General, who are you talking to?” “No, I feel more in touch with the force than anywhere else.” “Mee, what the fuck--” “Kreia.” “Oh, good, the Witch is talking in your head now. Great. Does she just wanna take over your body too, or is that later…?” “Atton, shut up, I’m trying to listen-”) 

They’re soon back on the ship, with a new resident- a Miraluka, of all people… The Exile is taken aback with the escaped slave, but soon takes her under her wing, as she’s done with everyone else. The Exile starts teaching her things in the Force, the light side, and meditating with Visas more, centering both of them. Atton isn't sure what to make of Visas, truly, but then again, he doesn't know what to make of any of this, anyways. 


	3. III

Something happened in the Exile’s head when she talked to that Jedi master, clearly seen in the forced restraint she wore on her face like a muzzle. Every once in a while in their conversation (fight? argument?), the Exile would make a remark about the council’s inaction, which Vrook would refute, only making her more angry. Atton wonders if this guy is just particularly awful, or if all the Jedi masters were like this. Either way, Atton thinks that he would've ditched the council, too.

When she returns to the ship, she shoves it down deep. She spends an hour just working on T3, which seems to calm her down. Atton notices, because of course he does, but he steers clear, especially when he hears her having some one sided argument to herself- saying what seems to be more of what she wishes she had said to that bitter old Jedi. He leaves the hallway when she sets down her tools and slumps against the wall of the ship, burying her head in her arms. 

She spends the trip to Nar Shaddaa talking to everyone on the ship, in turn. She fixes the ship with Bao, talking about the war. A part of Atton wants to go join them, but knows he cannot, he will never- if she knew, what would she think? Especially when that damned Witch is still around and looming over him with her threats. No, the Exile can never know, not when she's so kind and good to him.

He will continue running away from it, forever, and with any luck, he won’t ever put himself in the place where he has to even allude to any of it.

A couple of hours later, the Exile and Bao both emerge from the maintenance bay, and Bao is centered too, unnaturally so. There is a brief moment where Atton bitterly thinks that even Bao is capable of betrayal, no one looks like that from just talking--

Atton catches himself glaring at him- wondering how he even began to have the inking to consider Bao a friend- but then Bao focuses on a mug in the mess, lifting it ever so slightly without touching it and looks moderately pleased with himself. 

Oh. 

More Jedi. Great. 

But at least it’s Bao. Bao is a fairly good person, and probably won’t try to pry into Atton’s head like the old Witch.

So he relaxes, just a little, tiny bit. 

Then, to his absolute annoyance and chagrin, she begins to train the boy scout in the ways of the Force, too, after just one conversation. And the boy scout hangs on her every word like it’s the last thing he’ll ever hear. It makes Atton sick, and he finds himself bristling when she comes into the cockpit, something threatening to bubble to the surface, but he tears it back down to the depths of his inner world, just like he does with everything else. (Count the cards, focus on Pazaak, don’t give her the satisfaction of even the suggestion of a thought-)

She settles into the co-pilot’s chair. He opens his mouth, his last two functioning brain cells begging him to just shut the fuck up this time. His mouth does not obey.

“Done brainwashing the entire crew?” 

“All except you.” She says, leaning into the easy banter they have. He clamps down immediately, defensively. A small part of him tries to claw the anger back, to remind him that she’s never done anything to him, but he knows Jedi and Jedi can never be trusted- (pazaak- back to pazaak, nothing but pazaak--)

“You ever try to crawl into my head and try to show me that Jedi bullshit, I will shoot you square in the forehead faster than you or the Witch can blink.” 

“It was just a joke, Atton. Didn’t mean to hit a nerve-” She is visibly taken aback by his fierceness and looks at him with a hint of, what? Disgust? Fear? He can’t tell, but he’s never seen that look in her eye- 

“Yeah, well, I’m not in the joking mood.” He bristles, like a cornered kath hound. Anger keeps oozing out. He cannot stop it.

“-And that’s not how it works, anyway. I can show you, you know, if you feel left out-” 

“Absolutely not.” And the conversation is over. She sighs, then leaves the cockpit. 

(Count the cards, count the cards--)

He immediately feels bile rise in his throat. He didn’t mean to snap like that, she didn’t deserve that from him, when all she’s ever done is try to keep him alive and be kind, in her own way. 

She’s… The only person who’s been consistently kind to him in a very, very, very long time. The thought hits him like a runaway speeder crashing against the cliffside. 

He… doesn’t know how to take that. He knows, for absolute certain, that he does not deserve it. Why the hell would she even waste the energy?

And with that, he decides that this is his last stop, despite what the old Witch might have to say about it- maybe he doesn’t care what the Exile thinks, maybe he’s better off just like he was- deserter-- (he knows it’s a lie). But maybe he’ll just run away. He’s good at that, at least. He escaped the Sith once, what’s one old, ghostly woman...

She calls for a shipwide meeting to discuss the plan. He snaps out of his thoughts, and goes to share his knowledge. Why he does, he isn’t sure. But he’s glad to have the opportunity to maybe redeem himself from his outburst. He gives them the low down on Nar Shaddaa. 

So they dock, and encounter all the joys of the stench-ridden, bottom of the barrel, pit of the galaxy. 

She takes Bao and Visas. 

Atton sighs bitterly. Well, at least she didn’t take the boy scout. He’d get eaten alive on Nar Shaddaa. Or, maybe that would’ve been a good thing. 

So he waits on the ship, tries to fight off some pirates who think they get this landing spot, gets overtaken and knocked out. He gets a little bit of satisfaction that he was the last one from the crew standing, though.

He wakes up to a bruised Mical applying a medpac to his head, and the Exile looming over him, smiling ever so slightly, though the peculiar look in her eyes remains.

“Had a bit of a rough time there, huh?” 

He groans. “You should see the other guys.” And she grins at him slightly, before scurrying off to do whatever ex-Jedi do. 

So he’s back into combat ready shape in about three hours. Wasn’t a terribly nasty hit to his head, it was just in the wrong spot. And she comes to talk to him as he sits in the pilot’s chair once again, pain gone, but anxiety remaining.

“Do you wanna come with Bao and I? I figured you needed space earlier, and I think it was good to get Visas off the ship for a little bit-” 

“You guys could use some inside help, huh?” 

“Yeah, and I need someone handy with a blaster. I have to go meet Vogga…” 

“How the hell did you manage that?” 

So here he is, watching the Exile dance in little more than a bra and underwear for some giant, slimy slug. 

He doesn’t register much more than that, the way she moves her hips is extremely unbecoming of a Jedi, ex or otherwise. He allows himself to muse that she’s a little more worldly than she lets on- she’d clearly learned some things while in exile. What he’d give to be the one she dances for-- 

Soon they’ve found yet another problem after wandering around, found some dude who’s missing his wife and some pilot who needs clearance to leave and suddenly they’re in the refugee sector. She heals a sick man, so selflessly, sitting with him, holding his diseased hands in her scarred ones and speaking to him softly as the low glow of the Force overtakes him. Bao and him stand in awe of the act, the tenderness amongst the filth and darkness. The man weeps as she stands, thanking her over and over. She offers a smile and lets go of his hand before going off to the next task. 

She walks further still, finding another plethora of problems to solve, and fixes them, one step at a time, and never asking for anything in return (which Atton thinks is dumb, they’d be able to get so much money if she’d just ask for it- but he also admires it- the selflessness. It makes him wonder if the universe is really just all of the terrible, terrible things he’s known it to be. Maybe, just maybe, good things are allowed to happen, even in the darkest places of the galaxy. But he shakes off the notion- he thought that way, once, but learned in the same moment that he will never be privy to any of the light, never again)

He’s aware of two Twi'lek males trailing behind the Exile. He keeps an eye out, but she lags behind Bao and him. They say something to her, and she walks over, waving him and Bao off. Bao quickly turns to Atton, unsure. They both know she can handle herself, and above that, they’re in public, so nothing should happen. Atton would also like to think that at least Bao looks intimidating. Atton knows he looks like he’s just aiming to get lost, very much by choice. 

She returns to them, a curious look on her face, especially as she looks at Atton. The hair on the back of his neck rises. 

They carry on. There’s more fighting, more kindness from the Exile. 

She goes to fix the speeder- but hesitates before trying to unlock the controls. 

He knows that security things aren’t her forte, but she’s always improving in everything she does. It’s uncanny, her ability to pick up skills. But he jumps in anyways- even if it’s just to offset his earlier outburst. 

“Hey, let me do that.” He says, cocky. She snorts. 

“Sure, Atton. Go for it.” Her voice is a little sarcastic in the beginning, but she shifts out of the way as he moves to the controls and makes quick work of it. 

He cannot get the way she said his name out of his head. He makes quick work of the security panel, and they are able to use the speeder. He feels her eyes on him the entire time. 

The move on, and Bao gives him a curious look before his eyes flash to the Exile, then back to him. Atton shrugs very slightly, and they move on. 

Eventually, the Squid-Thing sets her up in a trap and Atton gets a very bad feeling. He’s gotten kind of used to being one of her unofficial bodyguards, and every trap he’s ever encountered here has been a whole lot more than he ever bargained for, especially with her. But she has to go alone and he feels restless without her. He doesn’t know what to do while he’s idle, and something within him aches to be useful and he can’t be useful when he’s cooped up on the damn ship.

And besides, he knows things about Jekk'jekk Tarr that she doesn’t… So he tells Bao that he’s just gonna take a walk. Bao eyes him suspiciously, but doesn’t stop him or say anything when he grabs one of the medipacs they leave by the exit of the ship. 

She seems surprised that he followed her. He’d follow her anywhere she went, his mind whispers. He shoves that one right back down there, too. None of that, especially when it’s his chance to get lost where that Witch can’t ever, ever find him. 

“Just be careful, okay.” He says. Which was not the plan. She scans his face with a neutral expression and for a second he feels like she’s seeing right through him, inside of him. Her gaze cuts through every defense, or at least, it feels like it. He maintains a neutral face, as best he can, although he feels something swirl beneath his skin, unfamiliar and bizarre in it’s vulnerability. But he doesn’t feel her try to rip into his mind with the Force. He would know.

“I will.” She says, something unsaid beneath that, that he isn’t sure of. “Atton- thanks. For everything you’ve done.” 

How could she know he was going to leave…? Unless she-- But he didn’t feel her intrude and he definitely would have if she did. Maybe she just knows. 

He smirks cockily, leaning into the drama of it all, and abandoning every swirling emotion beneath his familiar persona. Cocky is safe. Jokes are safe. Whatever that was, was not safe. 

“Just don’t get yourself killed, okay?” 

“Eh, I’ve been looking for the sweet release of death for years.” She quips back (although something dark crosses her eyes when she says it… Atton finds that all too relatable), laughing. “I’ll be right out, I’m sure. Squid-head doesn’t know what he has coming.” And she grabs the medipac, then takes his hand in hers and squeezes it ever so slightly. Her hands are sweaty and rough, but the touch is gentle. Kind. 

He…. hasn’t done this for a long time. Those words seem to jumble around in his head a lot when she’s around. Just as he's processing this, she slips away, smiling at him before turning her back and leaving. 

He feels the warmth from her hands even as she walks away.

She goes into the trap and he has a sinking feeling. So, he thinks for a second. This is the best chance he has. Does he leave now, make a clean break for it, or go back to the ship? 

He’s stunned into stillness. Things he hasn’t felt in years bubble up inside of him and it both terrifies him and brings him the same sliver of hope he’s desperately been trying to abandon for years. 

… He can’t decide what to do right now. So he goes to the cantina. Drinks a little bit. Almost gets cornered by two (stunningly beautiful) Twi'lek assassins, then jumps over the bar to shoot at them from afar, to which he thinks they’re too confused to do anything about. 

So the bounty hunter truce is off… 

Well, he can’t just leave her then, she’s got way too many targets on her head, and she'll need someone to take some blaster shots for her. 

So he stays, and decides right then that he would follow her to the end of the universe if she ever asked him to, and even if she didn’t ask him to. Which he’s determined to never put into words.


	4. IV

Bao and the Witch had elected to go save her from Go-To’s yacht, leaving him to mind the ship and the others, and also leaving him to wonder if he should’ve just joined them anyways. He knows Bao is capable, and he knows that the Witch is driven only by the need to have the Exile in her one handed clutches, but Atton wants to be the hero, for once. To have someone who’s already too good for him see him for something he isn’t, but wanted to be, at one point or another- before he became what he is. 

But they go, and he stays in the cockpit and simmers in anxiety until they return, and she returns, and then they return to Nar Shaddaa and the Exile finishes her meeting with yet another Jedi. 

She comes back to the cockpit, types in the coordinates in the computer for the next planet, then sits in the other chair. She turns to him, as if to say something, but apparently decides not to. 

He, for once, decides not to press it, but he takes in as much of the look on her face as he possibly can, all the while not looking at her directly, instead focusing on their ascent into the hyperlane. She always tries to meet his eyes when she’s near. It used to make him wildy uncomfortable. But he knows it’s her way of connecting. This time, she meets his eyes through the reflection of the viewport and seems to be searching for something within them. What could she be looking for, unless she knows something-

But then she smiles at him, assuming he’s not paying attention to her. She puts a hand on his shoulder when she leaves, squeezing a little. 

He catches himself lingering on her expression and her touch for far too long and reprimands himself as they hit hyperspace to go to Onderon. He puts his walls up harder.

That moment, that look was so full of gratitude and kindness and all other sorts of light things that he hasn’t been privy to in so long and he feels the ghost of being 20 again and the war is going well and everything is fun and not so morbid and awful yet, so they go out drinking and he somehow gets one of the gorgeous COs to make out with him behind one of the bunkers and it means nothing in the long run, but things just feel okay for once, he’s drunk and everything is light, not like the universe will crumble around him at any moment like he knew it was going to-- Pazaak. Focus on piloting. Pazaak. 

The flight there is… Interesting. It’s taking longer than he expected… Damn droid must have screwed something up… Atton finds himself restless, and elects to move around the ship to distract himself.

Mira, the newest notable addition to the crew (not mentioning the floating orb that G0-T0 sent, as well as the recently re-constructed assassin droid, both of whom Atton wouldn’t mind throwing out the airlock without so much as a second glance. At least the trash compactor does something useful, sometimes, instead of just offering bad, pushy comments and a means of allowing the enemy to keep eyes on them), happens upon him as he is just walking past the group of Jedi meditating. His gaze is focused on the Exile, and the peace on her face as everything melts away around her.

It’s beautiful- she’s beautiful. When she’s there, sitting and doing whatever it is Jedi do, the harsh circles under her eyes disappear. It’s like she sleeps another week, even when he knows she doesn’t sleep very often, and when she does, she wakes up looking worse than when she went to sleep. No matter what, she ends up in the cockpit, sitting in the chair next to him. And they play Pazaak until the night cycle ends.

But like this-- she’s glowing with lightness, peace, almost. A stark difference from whatever it is that plagues her. And he’s tried to tell her that, to which she’d eye him strangely, say something cryptic about the Force, then go off to do whatever it is she was doing in the first place. 

Makes him wonder what good he’s doing for her. 

“Meditation envy?” 

“Why don’t you go sit on a rocket??” They banter back and forth for a little while, heading back to the main hold. Atton doesn’t pay much mind to it, until Mira says something that really throws him off. 

“Don’t know why why she keeps you around other than the fact that you two are clearly hooking up power couplings. You get off on being the trophy pilot?”

He’s taken aback. “We aren’t.” he snaps. “What the hell gave you that--”

“She said the same thing, but I don’t believe either of you. No one *interacts* like you two and isn’t.” 

Atton flounders, even if it's what he wants, what the fuck do you say to that--

“You’d better keep yourself in line. She doesn’t need any more problems than she has, especially not from a moody subpar pilot who doesn’t bathe enough.” 

“You can land the damn ship next time we’re in the middle of a firefight then, your-fuckin-majesty.” 

This, in a strange sort of way, established a very weird, very confrontational friendship between the two of them. 

(She reminds him of a friend he had, back when things were easier and he was young. He likes that she doesn't pull punches, she lets you know exactly what she thinks.)

((and plus she sees how useless Mical is, and they both roast the hell out of him to entertain themselves in hyperspace, sometimes))

He storms back into the cockpit, mind reeling both about what Mira said and everything else that’s gone on. 

The night cycle begins. Everyone should be off to sleep, soon, thankfully. He’ll have some peace, to unpack whatever it is he just learned, among the other millions of things he has to think about in the privacy of the cockpit. And maybe, just maybe, he’ll try to sleep. Or at least rest. He doesn't sleep, either.

It’s true that he’s been aiming to get with the Exile since basically the second she released him from that force cage on Peragus, or at least that’s what he needs to seem like he’s doing- just being the usual disgusting man-pig, giving in to the very basic of urges his consciousness concocts. But where it was once just a defense, something he does when there are Jedi around him, it’s changed into something he doesn’t fully comprehend anymore. There’s a level that he wonders if this is just who he is now. But there’s also a deeper thread, something more real and complicated. 

Where it was once just a strategy, a game to preserve himself, it’s grown into who he is. At least, that’s what he thinks. But then, when it comes to the Exile- it feels too deep, too vivid to be a game, which is when he would normally find something else to fantasize about because attachments are dangerous, he of all people should know, but she somehow floats back in his defenses, and he almost, almost feels disgusted with himself. And he knows it’s dangerous, and he knows she deserves so much more respect, but this is who he is. Or maybe it’s who he’s always been. It’s anyone’s guess, at this point. 

No matter what, he can’t ignore the fact that he’s incredibly attracted to her, whatever it means. 

He really can’t say there haven’t been moments that they’ve been in such close proximity that he had to stop himself from just leaning down a little and catching her lips, grabbing her hips and pulling her flush against him, it would be so easy to just cross the line-- but he’s always stopped himself, knowing better, knowing he's simply the fool in a wider, more sinister plot. Sometimes, barely, turning away before he can scan her face for any indication of what she wants from him, if anything. 

She deserves better than him, anyhow. She, all sarcastic kindness, and good, deserves better than whatever it is he is. 

But the electricity jumping under his skin when she’s near… It’s real and it’s distracting. The fantasies don’t help, either.

Maybe he should’ve just taken off to the Nar Shaddaa red sector like he said he would. 

So he sits, playing his perfect game of Pazaak. And pitifully amusing himself with wild imaginings of what could perhaps come to pass, if she does come down to the cockpit and challenge him to a game of Pazaak, Nar Shaddaa rules and she ends up naked on the console, flushed, panting his name, and he tastes her, see how she arches under his tongue--

“Recovering from the excitement of Nar Shaddaa, huh?”


	5. V

He slams down his mental defenses- he hopes to the stars that she didn’t decide to try and read his mind just then.

He plays it cool. Or, as cool as he can, rather.

“Oh, I’m just congratulating myself on yet another daring escape.” He says, stretching his arms out in a dramatic fashion, then resting his hands on the base of his neck, elbows out. He feigns relaxing into the back of the chair. “You took us on quite the adventure this time- rescuing you from that creep.” 

Keep the persona, Atton. Do not break. (Pazaak, only pazaak-) 

She cocks an eyebrow. “Well, I’ll give you that. Even if I did break most of the way out myself. And had to deal with assassin droids after.” She settles in and sits on the arm of the chair beside him. He sees her favor her left leg as she walks, although barely. And there’s some nasty bruising on her neck, at least from what he can see (which isn’t much- damned Jedi robes…) If he ever meets Go-to in person, Atton will return the bruising, ten-fold.

“... How are you holding up?” He asks, more gently than he’s previously allowed himself. “No offense, but you look like hell.” 

She shrugs. “No worse than usual.” There’s something behind her words that he doesn’t trust. But she doesn’t let him analyze it, she moves right on. 

“Look, Atton,” He braces himself, this doesn’t sound like it’s going in a good direction. He’s filled with pangs of anxiety. “I’m sorry. I want to know how to fix the damage, if you’re upset…” She exhales, looking at him with worry in her features, that damned look in her eyes, meeting his gaze. He looks at her like she’s a mynock with three heads. 

“I don’t know what you did, but I can definitely tell you that I don’t deserve nearly as genuine an apology.” He responds, trying to make a joke, but it falls flat with his rising anxiety.

“.... You didn’t feel it?” she says, almost more confused than he is. “I thought you said you’d know--” 

“Meet, I say a lot of shit. Just tell me what this is about.” 

“Kreia showed me how to listen, I guess, to everyone’s surface thoughts-- I tried to stop before she got to you, but she wouldn’t let me. I’m sorry.” She says earnestly, face darkening at the mention of the Witch. 

Atton nods slowly, he hopes it wasn’t anytime recently. She’s right, he didn’t feel it at all, and he usually does. But, knowing the Witch, he isn’t surprised, somehow. He always knew that the Witch had some mental firepower at her disposal. And he knows how powerful the Exile is, too. His face darkens for a second, then he looks at her again and sees the look in her eyes intensify.

“Well, it’s what you Jedi do, so I expected it at some point. Never heard of one apologizing before though. That’s new.” 

They lull into an awkward silence. She eyes him curiously, and he pretends to ignore it. She moves to sit on the center console. (He ignores the proximity, he’s ignoring it-)

“Why do you play Pazaak in your head?” 

It takes him by surprise. Oh, thank the Force… 

And, by some miracle, he doesn’t bristle. He tells her. 

“-- Can you teach me how to shield my thoughts?” 

“No, I can just teach you how to play pazaak. Do you get what I’m saying?” 

Her eyes light up, and the look in her eyes changes into something new, but electric. “Okay, then teach me how to play pazaak.” 

And he does. She picks up his trick quickly. “-- So play pazaak, list off hyperspace routes, count the ticks in the power coupling, suddenly, it isn’t so easy to just walk in. So if someone tries to pry somewhere they’re not supposed to go, they won’t be able to. You’ll be right here with me, playing pazaak, where they can’t reach you.” She smiles at him, nodding. 

His heart positively lights up, oh, this is NOT what he planned at all.

She pulls her pazaak deck from one of her pockets. “How about a real game, then?” 

“Thought you’d never ask.” So they play, she pulls a bottle of juma she happened to acquire somewhere on Go-Tos yacht out from a hidden compartment he didn’t know about. She unscrews the bottle and takes a swig, then offers it to him. 

“You’re always surprising me, Meet.” So they play and they drink, and he laughs because little-miss-ex-Jedi is actually getting a little tipsy, despite her pleas that ‘Jedi don’t get drunk, not even ex-Jedi, Atton--” She trails out his name far too long, and it warms a part of his heart that’s been cold for a long time. 

And he laughs at her some more. Mira grumpily comes to the cockpit and pointedly shuts the door, muttering something about them needing to just hook up a power coupling already so that the rest of them can sleep. 

They both guffaw at that, albeit a little awkwardly. The moment passes. Atton wins the next hand. 

They finish the game, she hands over the credits she put forward. She nearly falls off the console and he rushes to make sure she doesn’t faceplant. 

(he’s holding her by her shoulders, as far away as he can possibly be, because the liquor has given him courage he knows he will regret using)

She flushes, laughing at herself and steadying herself. He likes when she laughs. 

“How many credits do you think you’ve won from Pazaak, Atton?” 

He considers this- probably a lot. But his debts took a lot of it. It evened out, eventually. 

“More than you’ll ever win.” She rolls her eyes. 

“I still think you cheat.” 

“I certainly do not.” he says. “There’s a reason it’s called fool’s luck.”

She stares at him. “But you’re not a fool, Atton, you’re one of the most capable people on this crew.” He can tell that she’s already starting to sober up faster than he is, even though he’s not that far gone. 

“Yeah, sure.” he says, deflecting and looking to the floor as he sits down in his seat again. She frowns. 

“I mean it.” she says. The air circulation system kicks on. He shifts uncomfortably in his seat, although a part of him delights in what she’s saying. He doesn’t allow himself to cling to it, as much as his being screams to. 

“Think whatever you want, Meet, I’m just a fool with a blaster.” he takes another swig of the juma, letting it burn on the way down. He feels her formulate something else to say next. He gets the feeling that whatever follows is not going to be a fun conversation. 

“You know, on Nar Shaddaa, I met someone who said he knew you.” 

“Oh yeah? Did I owe him credits too?” 

“He said that you weren’t who you say you are.” And that sets him off down the dark, deep hole, and he cannot stop as much as he desperately wants to. He could have just lied, but something make shim hurdle into the depths.

“I’m as ‘Atton’ as Atton will ever be.” He snaps. And he tears everything he’s hidden into the light, and shows her the ugly, bleeding monster he really is. 

He snaps at her, he hasn’t asked about her past at all, even though he knows exactly who she is and just what it was that she did- Malachor V being the pinnacle of it. He snaps, even when he sees her face grow dark at the mere mention. He sees the past anguish and guilt cover her eyes. He asks her why she went back to the council, hoping that she’ll get an easy sentence? She won’t be killed by the Jedi, no, just deceived- Jedi lie, Jedi deceive and Jedi dig into your head and ruin you, ruin lives and planets and everything-- and Revan was the only Jedi he ever met that took all that and threw it out the window for a while. Revan didn’t wait while everyone was dying around them in the Mandalorian Wars, Revan did what had to be done. And he followed her to hell, because she saved them from painful deaths at the hands of warriors with no mercy, not even to women and children. 

He tells her what he became under Revan- he killed Jedi and he reveled in it. He was good at it. He found excitement in it, he knows all there is to know about killing Jedi and watching the light leave their eyes as the screams suddenly halt, leaving deathly silence and blood coating his hands and blood pooling at his feet. He was methodical, he could look at one and know exactly how to make them break- get their allies first, tear their flesh just enough to maim, but not kill, and torture. And they would die screaming, gurgling their own blood and pain. He was good-- no, he was the best they had. Even the dark Jedi couldn’t track him, didn't even know he was there. He was a master. 

He sees the disturbed look on her face, somewhere between sadness, surprise and disgust, and reminds her that her body count is bigger than his ever will be. He was there, he saw exactly what she orchestrated. He should have died there, too, he tells her.

Her face then falls further into something he’s learned is the weight of an entire planet’s worth of guilt. Everything about her hardens to a place he is very familiar with, the only way to deal with the guilt is to detach. 

He gets a pang of regret, but his screaming emotions keep falling out of him and he cannot stop. 

He tells her that, maybe, just maybe he’s only telling her in case someone needs to clear the record and know that the only thing he’s doing anything for is the past. He isn’t looking to make up for what he did. He’s just running from it. 

In a break, she inhales, and asks a question, face stone cold, blustery cold. “Why did you stop?”

“I’m a deserter, it’s what I do.” he stops himself, finding a break in the anger, then continues, with the right words. 

“There was a- woman.” And he tells her what he has spoken to no one about. The woman, that Jedi, who crawled in his head and made him see what he was, and made him feel the Force, and made it so his emotions were no longer his weapons and he was not in control anymore and they would find him and change him into something vile and evil and not in control and he needed to get lost-

He has to steady himself, he’s getting far too lost in the memories and his chest feels like it’s constricting and he can’t breathe, oh stars, he can’t breathe--

The Exile is right there, kneeling beside his chair as he can’t catch his breath, the memory playing right in front of him and he can’t stop it he still hears her screams as she dies and he just feels everything all over again he feels the life leave her and leave a hole in the Force and he feels her pain- the pain he enjoyed inflicting and he feels her die and he wonders if the pain is his, he wonders if the death is his, supposed to be his-

She takes his hand, and holds it, thumb gently massaging circles around his white knuckles. 

“Atton, focus on pazaak.” He barely hears her, but he does as she says. The feeling fades, slowly, painfully. He knows he’s pale, he knows he’s sweating. He still breathes out his mouth, fearing the feelings will come right back and he’ll never be able to breathe again, which serves him well, let his end finally find him--

She’s still holding his hand, an anchor to the present. 

He continues, quieter. He needs to finish- to tell her. He owes her this much. 

“I think I loved her, but it wasn’t that kind of love. It was the kind where you’d give up your life for a stranger. The kind that you know.” and he finishes the story, the memory, where he killed her because he loved her. And then he fled. 

He feels the terrifying echoes of what she showed him even now, it hasn’t gone away and it haunts him.

The Exile is silent, still grasping his hand. He looks at her face, afraid of what he’ll find there. She nods slowly, looking him over. 

“Atton, thank you for being honest.” She says quietly, unmoving. 

Silence fills the room. He shifts in his seat. 

“So what now…?” He asks her, eyes more pleading than he wants them to be. He doesn’t want to see the hardness in her face, he wants to see the softness she shows sometimes, when she laughs, when things are only slightly falling apart- but he’s gone and ruined that, hasn’t he. 

“What do you mean, what now?” She asks back, no trace of negativity. “I’m in no position to judge. I created more than my share of carnage, like you said. And you’re here now, and I at least get the feeling that you’re with me on this thing, whatever it is.” 

She’s showing him compassion, even when he doesn’t deserve it. Of course she is- it’s who she is. 

Something bubbles up in his chest and he isn’t exactly sure where it comes from and the words tumble out before he can think. 

“I ran away from it for years, but I think… Meetra, I want you to teach me how to use the Force. So I can help you, protect you, or, at least buy you some time when disaster comes screaming in.” 

She is the most important thing in the galaxy. She is the only one who knows everything, and despite it all, shows him compassion. 

She’s puzzled for a second. “Are you sure? You were so adamantly against it before-” 

He shakes his head at the past. “I want to. Please.” 

She nods. “Okay.” 

“What do I have to do…? There must be some ritual..??” He sputters. She gently pulls him to the floor with her, having him sit in the same position that all her Jedi meditate in.

“Close your eyes, and open your mind and heart.” And she leads him through it, a way to still everything, and just listen. 

And he hears it again, what she showed him not so long ago, and what has been whispering in his mind ever since. And it welcomes him, waves brushing against his being and moving, breathing, shifting. 

It feels…. okay. Safer, than back then. His breath connects to it, he feels his own resistance and he does his best to let it go, to mixed success. He feels his chest tighten, his throat threaten to close like it did only moments ago, but he tries to breathe through it. She speaks, voice low, almost in a whisper, careful to not disturb his focus.

She watches his breath even out. She tells him to remember this, and to call on it when he feels the need to protect her.

“... At least, Atton, awaken.” 

And he opens his eyes to meet hers, and he swears he can see the Force in her eyes.

He breathes, eyes wide and everything about him feels raw, but not in a painful way. The exhaustion that usually hangs under his eyes feels a little lighter, his whole being feels a little lighter, not in any significant way, but enough for him to notice. His eyes threaten to well with tears, but he fights it with his only remaining energy.

She looks at him, questioning, wanting to know what he experienced, wanting to know if he’s okay.

But he can’t speak yet, he’s without words, for once, and if he lets go any more, he will fall apart. She realizes this, and smiles ever so slightly. Encouragingly. 

He isn’t sure exactly what goes through her head in the next moment, but suddenly she’s gently resting her hands on the outside of his and she leans in, and touches her forehead to his, closing her eyes and sitting in the moment. 

He doesn’t have it within him to resist, not that he wants to. He’s just surprised. 

But he leans in, a little bit, nonetheless. 

They stay like this, and he rests in the warmth, the closeness, and he realizes how much he’s ached for this closeness. She’s here, she’s close and she’s real and he’s not running away from anything anymore- not the Force inside him, not whatever destiny awaits him, even if it’s painful oblivion. 

He’ll do anything, if it means he gets to keep being by her side. 

She pulls back, and he immediately mourns the lack of closeness. 

She still sits as close though. And he sees her eyes flicker to his lips for a split second. And he wonders, for a mere second if-

Then the proximity alarms go off, alerting them that they’ve wandered directly into yet another firefight. 

They both leap to their feet and he quickly sits down to begin evasive maneuvers. 

“I’ll go wake the others-” She says, exiting. 

He groans. “Of course…”


	6. VI

They crash on Dxun, and the Witch threatens him, with power behind her words that he hasn’t seen from her before and it alarms him. He thinks that maybe, the Witch is realizing that he’s gaining freedom from her influence. 

But he stays on the ship nonetheless, citing repairs when the Exile questions him. 

“I’m sure T3 can handle it-”

“No, it’s a little over the trash compactor’s height- I got it, don’t worry.”

“I can tell Bao to-” She tries again, insistent. Atton shifts uncomfortably. 

“Just go, it’s nothing too complicated, it’ll just take a while.” He says, giving her a little nudge in the direction of the ramp. 

She stops dead in her tracks. “You aren’t having second thoughts about-” 

He furrows his eyebrows firmly. “No, no- I just figure that I can do the repairs this time.” He replays Kreia’s threat to him over in his head, then he realizes… maybe, just maybe, the Witch doesn’t have power over him anymore, maybe her threats are empty. 

“I can stay and help, if you want. I’m handy with a hydrospanner, now.” She says, stepping back toward him. 

“Look, it’s nothing too serious, and besides, two people crammed in an access hatch isn’t going to help anything.” He smirks. “Unless you want to be crammed in an access hatch with me for a day or two…” He thinks that should be a sure shot in driving her away. It’s worked before. Complete with wolfish smirk, he sets his diversion. 

The returned look on her face tells him a couple of things- first off, she’s wide eyed, but not frightened or taken aback or disgusted, no... She’s surprised, and something different in her eyes leaves him thoroughly shaken. Her eyes flicker to his lips, then lower, lower, then back to his lips, lingering for only a millisecond longer, almost as if she's asking if he can handle that, then she regains composure, slight flush on her face. 

That…. Usually works much differently… 

His mouth goes dry and he doesn’t know what to say. 

She’s about to reply when Bao calls her outside. 

Atton shuffles to the access hatch, head reeling. Well, he’s gonna have to fix the ship while thinking of all sorts of wild fantasies now to distract himself from everything else, if he read into that interaction correctly… 

So he gets to work, not that anything is terribly broken. 

Okay, maybe he lied. The hyperdrive… A while later, he calls her on the com. 

“I’m gonna have to shut down the primary power source, so you’re gonna have to do without me for a while. I know, you’re crushed.” he swears he can hear her sigh ever so slightly. 

“More than you know…” 

“Didn’t catch that- the line must be acting up-” He prods at her, though his heart leaps. He couldn't have heard that right.

“Just stay out of trouble. See you after I cause a civil war.” She chuckles as the line shuts off. He presses the power switch to the ship, hearing the whirr of mechanics come to a halt, only the lights and the air circulation remaining. 

After about a day, the Exile and party return, and they’re off to the next planet, which, he has to admit, he’s really not excited for.


	7. VII

As he traveled with the Exile more and more, and they became closer, he found himself following her more closely, physically close. That way, he can shove himself in front of her when danger comes screaming in. This is especially the case on Korriban, but it happens more and more frequently, these days.

He adopts these moves of taking hits for her. She reprimands him for it every single time with nothing more than a glance, especially when he gets injured and someone has to patch him up, or he just does it himself. He finds himself whispering the same thing Visas says under his breath, my life for yours. 

She always gives him the best armor after she catches on, spending hours at the workbench fortifying it until she is satisfied (he makes fun of her for it, and tells her to cut it out, but when she’s not looking, it makes him blush a little bit- it smells like the workbench of the ship and her. No matter how hard a time he gives her, he wears it, and it always fits a little too well, and feels a little too comfortable, compared to any other armor he's worn. He still misses his jacket, though.)

On the surface of Korriban, as they’re traipsing through the desolate Sith Academy, slicing through the nasties (Atton’s been using a vibrosword that the Exile insists he should start using, even though his first instinct is to use his blaster- distance is safer, his mind always yelps, but he shoves it down and leans back into his Echani training), the Exile gets a wild look in her eye that both Bao and Atton tend to know to stay far away from. For an ex-Jedi who’s apparently hellbent on saving the galaxy, she sure makes some questionable decisions sometimes, especially when it comes to setting off old defenses. She's run directly through active mine fields more times than either of them can count. 

But, she just wanders over to what looks to be an old workbench. 

“Hey, come here-” She says, motioning them over. They both see what she’s looking over. 

“Oh, there’s enough parts here for a couple, I think, General.” Atton glances over the table. Oh. Lightsaber parts. 

“Alright, I’ll tell you how to do it, but you’re making them-” She smirks at Atton, then Bao, who has been using a short lightsaber they stripped from a dead Sith assassin.

This…. Is ironic. A while ago, he would’ve imagined that if things kept going the way they were going, he would’ve been making his lightsaber in the Sith academy, but these circumstances were vastly different. 

He swallows, seeing the irony. She puts a hand on his shoulder as Bao had already gotten to work. 

“Even light can come out of darkness.” She says. 

He snorts. “You’re taking this Jedi-master thing way too far, Meet.” 

She still smiles. Both he and Bao get to work, Bao definitely having done this before. 

They eventually come to the place where they need crystals, and the Exile fishes into her pockets for any that she may have collected along the way. She dumps them on the table. 

“Usually, we’d all take a little excursion into the cave on Dantooine, but, I don’t think we have time for a field trip.” 

“Nothing about this is conventional.” Bao replies, picking up a deep blue crystal, then inserting it into the chamber below the lens. Bao is focused, and seems happy to be creating.

Atton stares at the collection. He truly has no idea what to pick. So he does what he thinks Meetra would tell him to do. 

He reaches out with the Force and picks the one that feels best. 

His hand hovers over a lump of crystal, with one point that’s cyan, and one point that’s amber. 

She noticed and nods. “Huh. Interesting.” 

He picks up the crystal and it splits in half. “Well, shit.” he curses. She shakes her head, no it’s fine. And she pulls another lightsaber out of her pocket, one of the ones that they’ve taken from the corpse of a Sith. 

She hands it to him. “I did kinda have you pegged as a two-lightsaber fighter.” It feels fitting, truthfully. An ex-Sith turned Jedi using a dead Sith’s lightsaber.

Bao cocks an eyebrow. “He’d take being pegged by you any day.” 

Atton almost throws the lightsaber at Bao, who cackles in his own particular way. The Exile also cackles, almost loud enough to wake up the shyracks in the cave down the way. 

(((Bao is right, however, and he can’t help but think about it)))

Atton goes back to his work, inserting the crystal into both lightsabers. As their laughter dies down (and the flush on his face is no longer), both Bao and Atton stand in front of the Exile, waiting for further instruction. 

“Well, go on, see if they work.” She says, smiling with pride. 

And all three lightsabers are switched on. Atton marvels at how light they are, and how clean they move through the air. He does his best to let go of the prickling feeling that comes with railing against Jedi for so long. 

“Now you can’t complain when I tell you I’m definitely gonna check out the cave.” 

Bao snorts. “I’m not the complainer here.” 

So they finish up in here, run away from Sleeps-With-Vibroblades, and head into the shyrack cave, which is damp and gross and just feels awful. 

Atton sticks close to the Exile, Bao trailing behind, but not too far behind.

(Bao is used to being a third wheel at this point. He enjoys Atton’s company, and lives for the General. He doesn’t mind the suffocating amount of tension that’s been surrounding them since the beginning. It’s frustrating, at times, but he doesn’t mind it too much, especially when he can make Atton squirm over it). 

There’s a bridge. The air feels weird and uncomfortable. And he can tell the Exile is beginning to get a little distracted, but doesn’t say anything. 

They cross the bridge and are attacked by evil invisible lizards, and it’s very clear that something is bothering the Exile. She’s fixated on a deeper part of the cave... She moves over to it, and peers in. Bao and Atton both look at it with distaste, nothing good comes can come out of that cave… 

“I...I think I have to go in.” 

Of course she does. Atton rolls his eyes. 

“It’s not a good idea, I have a bad feeling-” and she’s already inside. They go to follow, but an invisible barrier prevents them. 

“General, we can’t go any further- be careful!” Atton's stomach plummets with anxiety. He can't protect her if he can't go with her--

So they wait, on the other side of the bridge. Bao wanders off a little bit, and Atton paces impatiently. Bao wanders back, having found some tech parts in some hidden cache in the cave. 

They’re there for several hours. At a certain point, Bao muses about going back to the ship, but the Zabrak stops, knowing he should stay for the Exile. Bao then looks curiously at Atton, smirk playing on his lips.

“Atton, when are you going to do it?” 

“Do what?” He asks, looking to Bao, who raises an eyebrow at him. 

“You know exactly what I’m talking about.” Bao doesn’t back down, even though Atton wishes he would. Atton shrugs, partially in deflection, partially in defeat.

“Don’t think she has time for that.” He responds quietly. She doesn’t. And he’s still not worth her second glance, no matter how much time she’s been spending in the cockpit lately, no matter how many exchanges of banter they have, and no matter how many conversations and games of pazaak they have deep into the night.

Bao rolls his eyes. “You’re more of an idiot than I thought.” 

And then, she comes stumbling, barreling out of the evil cave. 

She doesn’t register them, at first, limping and running out of the darkness. She seems-- darker, less sure of herself, injured..?? 

“Meet!” He calls as she nearly passes by him. She stops, surprised, and pulls her lightsaber on him. 

He instinctively pulls his as well, defending himself as she looks at him with the same cold determination she saves for her enemies. Bao rushes over, a worried expression on his face. Atton does not swing at her, but deflects her rushed attacks. She’s shaking, and her attacks are frantic, lacking her usual precision and power. Her eyes are cloudy and she’s panting, panicking.

“Meetra, what the hell?!” He yelps as she grazes his shoulder. Bao draws his lightsaber as well, joining the fray, using the Force to bump her out of melee range. She trips backwards, stumbling. She yelps in pain as the small of her back hits a sharp rock as she lands. That's gonna bruise, badly, if it didn't puncture skin...

“Shut up, you’re just a vision--” She staggers to her feet, wheezing and coughing. 

“We’re not visions, General.” Bao says, causing her eyes to try to focus. She’s visibly confused, wavering. 

Atton, swallowing the sting of his new shoulder injury, switches off his weapons and runs to her, not bothering to hide his concern behind bravado like usual. 

“Fully real, thank you very much.” He says, fully cognisant of just how close he is to an ignited double bladed lightsaber. 

She blinks, now standing in a confused stupor. Her vision seems to take a moment to settle on his face, but once she does, she erupts in a different kind of panic. She scans over the both of them, checking for injuries. Bao turns off his weapon and takes a step closer, although not close enough to be in the way. Atton looks to him briefly, pleading him to go back to the ship and have Mical get the med bay ready. Bao nods, and runs back to the ship. Atton is relieved that they took care of all of the nasties inside and outside of the cave, at least for now. 

“Atton!! Fuck, I hurt you--” She stumbles, shutting off her lightsaber and nearly dropping it. His hands meet her shoulders. Her body seems to be devoid of heat. She’s shaking. The determination in her face seemingly never fades. He sees it falter.

“What happened in there, Meet?” He firmly asks. She tries to catch her breath, unsteadily.

“Saw some shit… Memories, only it was real and then you all came out and told me ‘apathy is death’ over and over because I wouldn’t kill any of you and Revan stabbed me but I don’t think it actually happened…?” she runs her hand over her torso, looking for some hole but apparently not finding it. 

Atton stares at her, concerned. “Man, the dark side is some bullshit.” He says-- jokes, always back to jokes. Humor is safe. “Sounds like a bad fever dream, huh.”

She nods, wobbling on her feet. Her face returns to the bravery she always projects, but the rest of her body tells a different story. “Bad dream.” She repeats, exhaustion overtaking her. She starts to go down, eyes closed and body tensed. 

“Oh, no you don’t--” Atton catches her as she starts to slide down to her knees. “Look, I told you way at the beginning of this thing, the only way I’m ever carrying you out of someplace is if you’re drunk off your ass in a cantina, and this is clearly not what’s happening, unless some Sith got really creative with the juma in there.” 

She laughs weakly, eyes blinking open. He hoists her up in his arms. She huddles into him, trying to get as physically close as possible. 

“You’re so warm.” She says, shivering into him. Whatever happened there was some terrible thing, he knows it was. 

“Hey, I’m normal- you’re the one who's a little like the blustery ass-crack of Hoth right now.” 

She doesn’t stop shivering the entire way back to the ship, even when she drifts out of consciousness, which he isn’t sure is sleep, exactly, though it looks like it. He holds her a little tighter after that, moving more quickly. 

He places her down on the medbay table and Mical gets to work, hooking her up to an IV, and all the other stuff he can’t remember the names of right now. 

“Thank you, Atton. I fear she might have been worse off, had you and Bao not been there.” 

Atton shoves down his distaste for the man, and nods. “Is she gonna be alright?” 

Mical nods, looking her over. “Yes. She’s suffering from exhaustion, and something else that I fear is rooted in the dark side, but that may be fixed once we are out of orbit of this place.” 

Atton nods again. “I’ll get us out, then.” And he practically runs to the cockpit.


	8. VIII

They’re midway to their next destination, a fuel station to get supplies, when she wanders into the cockpit. It’s the middle of the night cycle. She pads in, no shoes, no robes, just her simple underclothes and a large blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She looks beyond exhausted, and moves like it, too. He hears her come in and sees her in the slight reflection of the viewport. 

“Well, well, the hero’s finally awake.” he says, turning towards her. “Though, I think you could still use some rest.” 

“You can, too.” She says. “I don’t think you ever sleep for longer than a couple hours.” She’s avoiding talking about herself. He knows she hates causing anyone alarm within the crew. 

“Don’t like to leave auto-pilot unattended for too long. That stupid T3 unit might try to take the controls again, who knows.” He replies, shrugging, trying to lighten her mood and see her at least crack a smile. She doesn't. “You alright?” 

She purses her lips together, then shakes her head ever so slightly. “M’still cold.” She mutters, eyes trailing off to the streaming stars outside the viewport. 

“Yeah?” He breathes. He motions to her. “Come here, then.” And to his surprise, she does. His body moves against his better judgement- the one that knows that he isn’t worth her second glance. But, somehow, he’s guiding her into his lap and she’s bundled in her blanket, sitting across him, sharing his warmth. His arms find their way around her waist, lightly resting on her, not quite sure what to do, but wanting to provide warmth, comfort, whatever she needs. She leans her head on his shoulder and takes in the warmth. He can feel her breathing, he can feel her warmth, and he can’t help a small smile from creeping in his mouth. It’s dizzying, the contact. He feels heady. 

He holds her tighter. One of her hands finds his and she wraps her fingers around his palm. 

(something he’ll never admit to anyone- this is what the inside of his innermost dreams have been- something he never thought possible, he’s not worth this kind of gentleness)

She cranes her neck, to meet his eyes, searching for something. Her breath changes, she starts to speak. 

“Hey Atton?” 

“Yeah?” 

“... How long are we gonna keep doing this…?” She trails off. 

He becomes flustered. “I-I mean you can go whenever you want, I just figured, I mean, if you were cold--” Thankfully, she cuts him off. 

“No, not this… Well, kind of.” She gathers her thoughts. “You and me... “ 

“What about you and me?” he doesn’t know how to respond. Part of him wants to make some bold declaration, some “hey I will follow you to the end of time if you want and additionally, if you wanted to make good on that look you shot me on Dxun, I would be down--”, but the other part of him doesn’t dare. She’s better off with someone else, she should choose someone else--

She narrows her eyes at him. “Atton, I just wanna know if I’m reading into this too much-- I mean, you say things and half the time I think it’s just a defense mechanism, then other times--”

He shakes his swimming head, his heart beating faster than it ever has in any battle, any game of pazaak. 

So, she hasn’t been playing. 

And he wants her so bad- but there are things-- things he needs to come to terms with. He’s not a good person, and hasn’t been for a long time, if he ever even was. She deserves more. He still needs to prove himself.

He shakes his head, and it pains him to do so. “Not yet, Meet. Not ready for this conversation yet.” 

And she nods, understanding. Tensing a little, but not speaking anymore on it. He can't see the expression on her face, but he can almost imagine the resignation, and the brave front she's thrown up to not make him feel bad.

He tightens his hold ever so slightly, then presses a chaste kiss to the side of her forehead. She immediately relaxes, a ghost of a smile on her lips that he can finally see in the reflection of the viewport. 

And they stay there, and both fall asleep- something light, warm and new, but not particularly restful due to the general anxiety of their overall situation and their admittedly cramped position. But it's comfortable enough, and they both need it, in a way. 

Eventually, a message from Dxun rings in, waking both of them. 

So they’re speeding back to the planet, to actually fight in the civil war. The Exile had left the cockpit to prepare whatever it is she needs to, leaving remnants of her warmth behind and nothing more. 

Many more things happen, and the Exile is called to Onderon. She comes to him before she leaves, and tells him she wants him to lead Visas and Mira into the Sith base.

And suddenly, he finds himself battling against what he knows would have been his future, should he have stayed, if that woman had never pried open his mind to the Force all those years ago. 

He swings his lightsabers with precision, speed, strength and grace, as is the Echani way, and as the Exile had taught him in their couple of sparring sessions. 

And he’s faced with choices- some that he always knew he’d have to make. They prod at him and he feels the pull of the dark and a part of him remembers how good it felt, back then. 

But he remembers her, holds onto the feeling of her- all goodness and snark and raw heart, and he tells the dark Jedi to fuck right off to whatever ugly garbage pit they crawled out of. 

He knows he will never be truly good, truly righteous, truly a hero. He will be grey, at best, the darkness will always be etched within him- written on his scars and seeping in his blood drenched palms. But he will do whatever it takes to remain in her company- if only to prove that is even a thousandth amount worthy of her time and of her journey.

(and maybe even her heart, the voice within him whispers, and he is reminded of holding her after Korriban, the smell of her hair, her weight against him and the way she looked at him- no fear, no disgust, only a question and that aching familiar look he’s now been able to identify as longing- the likes of which he’s seen in his own eyes, reflected on the console when they’re playing pazaak late at night-) 

The dark Jedi fall at his feet and he’s filled with a profound sense of calm. He feels centered, for once. His senses are crystal clear, and he, for a mere moment, is no longer afraid. 

Mira and Visas, the others in this mission, give him a moment, sensing the shift within him. 

Atton stands tall and breathes for a moment. Suddenly he’s aware of the Force around him filling his being like freezing air entering his lungs and making everything seem more crisp and alive. It's as if he can truly breathe, for the first time in a long time.

From Onderon, he feels her give pause to their bond, and his lack of shielding, lack of pazaak. He feels her smile and all the warmth that she brings to it. 

They return to the Ebon Hawk, where the adrenaline wears off, leaving his injuries from the dark Jedi to sting, but the feeling of center to remain. 

He, for the first time in many, many years, drifts off to sleep and is, for once, not tortured by nightmares or the vision of who he used to be. 

She returns in the middle of the night cycle, Mandalore’s heavy steps accompanying her presence. Atton wakes. He recalls that he’s always been a light sleeper, when he can sleep. The Witch’s presence also returns, an icy chill that instinctively makes him put his defenses up again. 

He hears her wish her companions a good night, and steps into the main hold when they move off to their respective bunks. 

He peers from the cockpit, hoping that she can’t quite sense him, but knowing that she can. She always can.

She seems distracted, something about her is darker than usual, especially in the way she holds herself. She pauses, looking to the mess, then to the hold, where he knows she sometimes sleeps, when she can. 

She exits the Hawk, quietly, resting a hand on T3 as she walks past. 

Atton wonders if she just needs time to herself- it’s what she does when she has a lot to think about. She’d made many improvements on T3 that way, but now that the droid is as good as ever, she doesn’t have an excuse anymore. 

But he saw how tired she was, and felt it, too. She’s exhausted and weary, something weighing heavily on her mind. 

So he slides his boots back on, leaving his jacket on the pilot’s seat. 

He finds her leaning under a tree and staring into the sky, mind somewhere far, far away. 

“... You know, there are better ways to get me alone.” He breaks her attention away from whatever she’s fixated on, roguish smirk and tone light. “A nice shoulder brush, maybe a little dance like you did for that Hutt-” The flirting feels weird, especially since what went unsaid earlier, but it’s what he knows and it’s a joke between them, almost. A battle of wits, even if he now knows there’s some fire behind it. 

“Mm, but I always like a little mystery. You scoundrels can’t have all the fun.” She responds, voice betraying her exhaustion, but she smiles at him, the light of the other moons illuminating her face. 

“Scoundrel? I like the sound of that.” he retorts, stepping closer to her. She put her hair down from its usual tactical arrangement. It’s not the first time he’s ever seen it (re: the Fresher Incident, where she wanted to shower and had accidentally walked in on him as he was about to get into the shower himself), but she’s softer with it down. 

“I was waiting for you, actually.” She admits. “Knew you’d be awake, but didn’t expect you to take so long.” Something in her words makes him jump to make her understand.

“I just figured you’d want some time. You seem distracted.” he says, a little awkwardly. “Why wait for me?” He’s puzzled, but his heart leaps. 

“You had quite an experience today, hm?” She leads, and he nods. 

“Yeah, I did.” He tells her. “I finally proved something to myself, I think.” 

And to you, he adds, for only him to hear. 

She nods and offers a smile. “That you did, Atton.” And she trails off, looking back to the sky. 

“Atton, something terrible is going to happen soon.” She says, as if she were talking about the weather, simple clouds in the sky and impending storms. 

“Isn’t it always?” 

She snorts quietly. “The end of our journey is near, I think. Something waits for me… I don’t know what it is, but it’s… not good.” She struggles to put words to it, and ends up giving up. But he knows, he can feel it, too. 

“You’ll be fine, just like always. I will personally ensure that Sleeps-With-Vibroblades doesn’t come anywhere near you.”

She pales. “I’m not worried about myself.” Ah. Worried about them, then. 

Atton isn’t quite sure what to do, but settles on stepping a little closer to her. 

“We’ll be fine, Meet.” He says, trying to reassure both of them. “We’re strong, and so are you.” 

And with that, she nods slightly, looking at him again. “I’m sorry we woke you up when we got back. I know you don’t sleep often-” 

“Meet. Stop.” And he realizes she’s crumbling a little bit more than usual, fretting over the mundane as she does when she gets overwhelmed. He takes her hand in his and squeezes. “If the ex-Sith assassin/torturer can tell you that it’s going to be alright and that there is still some good in the universe, then you can believe it.” 

“But is there good for people like us?” 

And the expression on her face is pained. She allows the weight of a world’s worth of guilt to show. He wants to shoulder some of it so that she doesn't crumble under the enormity of it anymore.

“Yes.” He says, more conviction in his entire being than he’s ever had. He pulls her to him and embraces her, firmly. Her forehead rests against his neck and she clings to him. Her breath becomes ragged with tears she will not allow to come to fruition. 

They stay there, until dawn breaks, which isn’t long. 

The day begins with a sense of foreboding.


	9. IX

At the final confrontation of Kreia, Sion takes his hand, and not in the fun, joyful way that the green recruit on Alderaan imagined it might happen someday if he met the right person, in the beginning.

Atton defeats Sion with a final blow directly in his chest. The fight was long, difficult. Atton turns off his lightsabers as Sion falls to the ground, falling with him, pain overtaking his spirit, finally.

Atton sees himself in Sion- the rage and the fear that drives them both. Even as a new Jedi, he sees the connection between the two, in more ways than one. 

As Sion lay dying at last, and Atton clutching at where his hand used to be, Atton crawls over to the crumbling man, looking at him with eyes he hasn’t experienced since being a new recruit for the Republic, all those years ago. Sion, freeing himself from his rage, from his darkness, weeps despite himself. The light begins to take him. Atton sits next to him, bleeding, but hopefully not fatally (he’s feeling faint he’s losing blood, there’s a gash on his forehead, his vision isn’t right, every nerve in him feels like the sensors of the Hawk when the deck was breached- but he will hang on, for the dying man beside him, for her-) 

Atton does not know what to say, and feels exactly as he did the first time one of his comrades lay dying next to him in the war. This man is what he could have become. Atton feels that Sion knows this too. Atton is the man Sion could have been, if he had turned away, or been turned away. 

Atton feels he should say something. What would he want to hear, should he have fallen that far? 

“It’s over.” He says. Not victoriously, not in his usual roguish manner, no fake bravado. Yes, the battle is over, but so is the pain and hurt and rage and fear, the fear is over. Sion’s breath becomes jagged. 

“You— are saved, brother.” Sion wheezes. Atton’s eyes well, but he is far too caught up in the deathly silence and unsettling peace of the room to notice. Something through the Force pries the both of them open, memories of war, darkness and otherwise flowing between them like air. But Atton does not feel the darkness as he once did.

Sion takes shorter ragged breaths. They both see the vision of the Exile, fighting Kreia, bloody, coated in sweat and beating down the rage with the light within her. Kreia is weakening. They can feel it. But the Exile is tired, so tired. 

“She is— she is the light—“ Sion breathes, continuing. Atton nods slowly. Sion takes his last breath. “Brother, protect the light. Love— her— as I could not.” 

And Sion expires, dissipating into dust. Atton feels tears run down his face for the first time in many, many years. In the death of Sion, he feels the darkness finally, finally die in himself. 

He stumbles to his feet, feeling Kreia take the fatal blow. It is all over. His vision fades in and out, and he reaches out through the force for the Exile, and finds only a faint trace of her. She’s playing pazaak, probably to protect herself from the final desperate measures of that witch. He weakly smiles, then he stumbles to find her.

When he ventures back to her, he collapses on the floor, bleeding. The adrenaline wore off. He’s not sure where from, but the blood will not stop. The Exile stumbles to his side kneeling beside him and allowing the healing Force to wash over them both. She’s bleeding too, and there’s a power emanating around her- full, almost glowing off her. She isn’t breathing right, she’s clutching her side-- 

“Did I save you yet…?” He tries to move towards her, but his limbs fail him. She grabs his remaining hand, squeezing weakly. He clings to her hand like it is his last thread of rope over a deep abyss. His vision is darkening. 

“Shhh, you’re lost a lot of blood-” He faintly feels the Force around them, knitting their wounds, but he worries it isn’t fast enough. “You look like hell-”

“Was always ugly on the inside... now the outside matches, huh.” He tries to blink away the fuzzy vision, the exhaustion. 

“Shut up, scoundrel-- Atton, you did it--” She loses her balance and falls next to him, her head falling in the direction of his feet. He forces himself to move, she cannot be as bad as he is, no, they’ve come so far and they defeated the Witch and Sion, they cannot fail now-- 

He struggles to a sitting position, finding protective strength in seeing her in pain, he pulls her torso to him, wrapping his arms around her, the pain of his body becoming background noise. He holds her to him as tight as he can, she wraps her arms around his hands. 

This isn’t how this was supposed to go, he thinks bitterly through the fog seeping into his brain. She shouldn’t be this weak, she shouldn’t be dying, she’s supposed to walk away, even if it meant leaving his body behind her. 

“Look at you, being’ the hero.” He whispers, then frowns. “Think I'm the only one supposed to be dying though--” 

She breathes, but barely. The Force still surrounds the both of them, slowly, slowly healing. Too slowly. 

She opens her mouth to speak, but he stops her. “No… you gotta get out of here alive-- save your breath…” His grip weakens. He feels her panic. He tries to stay strong, he really does, but the pain seeps back. His vision is going dark. 

“Loved you from the moment I saw you… Thought you were a dream….” He says quietly, emphasised by the deathly silence of the planet. “Always joked about it…. Wasn’t funny….” He collapses backwards. 

“Atton-- Atton--” 

She panics. She reaches around, tries to look at him, but the darkness takes her too.


	10. X

Atton wakes up on the Ebon Hawk, crammed in the medbay on the examination table, and the Exile on an improvised cot just outside the door. Mical opens his eyes, standing up from his meditation. He rushes to move, to see her fully--

“Careful, Atton. She’s okay. She’s okay.” Mical says, gently pushing the pilot back. Atton’s mouth is dry, he feels like he’s been run over by a starcruiser, or ten. He runs a hand through his hair and yelps at cool metal. This isn’t his hand, isn’t even his arm up to the shoulder, what the hell is this-- He looks down to see a cybernetic limb jutting down from his bicep. Sion had apparently taken more of him with him than he realized. His chest feels like it caved in. Mical looks at him with a pitiful eye. Atton doesn’t respond, as he knows he normally would. He just stares downwards. 

“I was more worried about you, to be perfectly honest.” Mical says. “Gave us quite a scare, you did.” 

Atton still doesn’t speak. Mical breathes with him, letting the Force flow to the broken pilot, in a way that Mical hopes shows him that everything is okay. Atton bristles, but does not shut down as he usually does. 

For perhaps the first time, Atton sees Mical as he really is, separate from whatever judgements he may have previously made. Mical is good, almost infuriatingly so. But he is good, he is light, and he only wants to help. He is a good man. Perhaps, perhaps, Mical isn’t as bad as Atton had built him up in his mind. 

“... Thank you.” Atton’s voice is low, raspy from lack of use. Mical nods at him, then turns back to the Exile. 

Mira walks past, checking on all three of them. She raises an eyebrow at Atton. “Finally living, sleeping beauty?” Atton snorts. 

“Barely.” She gives him a slight smile that speaks of her gladness that they’re all still around. 

“No kidding. We got in there and thought the worst. Glad to see you finally made a move, though the both of you passed out from blood loss. Great timing, there, by the way.” Mira chuckles, then glances to the Exile. “Glad you’re both still here. Glad we’re all still here.” Atton scoffs at her. Mira smiles, then takes her leave, moving to go look after the others on the ship. Mical examines some medical machinery around the Exile. 

“She should be awake by now, and I can’t reach her through the Force….” Mical says, frowning and furrowing his brow. She looks bruised, exhausted, positively drained, but they both see the rise and fall of her chest. Atton feels an overwhelming wave of anxiety- what if Kreia, in her last moments, did something-- they had their Force bond and it was strong-- 

Mical hands Atton a glass of water. Atton drinks, greedily. The coolness feels good, even if the water is stale, like all the ship’s water. Atton makes a mental note to get the system checked when they get to wherever it is they’re going, if he's ever able to move again. 

Mical answers him. “Bao Dur is piloting in your absence. We’re heading to Telos, I believe the Republic has issued a request to speak with the Exile.” 

Atton nods. “Make sure he doesn’t wreck my ship.” Atton, still anxious, settles back into the medical cot. Mical begins to leave.

“Uh, hey, do you have anything to knock me out? I’d rather be unconscious, if she is.” Mical smiles lightly, then turns and offers an injection. Atton is asleep within a matter of minutes. 

Atton wakes in the middle of the night cycle, when he senses most of the ship is asleep, and the droids are milling about. He reaches out, seeing if anyone is awake. Bao Dur is flickering into unconsciousness, but vaguely recognizes Atton’s reach. Bao extends him a small grin, a feeling of gladness that neither of them is dead, then drifts off to sleep. Mira and Visas are in a deep state of rest, close together, as they were always circling towards. Mical is meditating, but exudes a sense of exhaustion, too. Atton senses a lingering pain coming from everyone on the ship, emotional and physical. It makes sense, everyone must’ve been injured either in the final battle or the explosion of the planet. 

He notes the absence of Kreia, and how everything feels much… Lighter without her. Good riddance. Her hold on everything will not be missed. 

He is suddenly aware of the familiar, comforting presence of the Exile. He turns to face her, and watches her breathing as she blinks to consciousness. 

She looks around, unsure of where she is at first, then relaxes a bit when she realizes she’s on the Hawk. She releases an uneasy breath. She immediately does what he just did, and reaches out. He feels her mind brush against his, gently, unobtrusively. She gasps to herself and he sees tears stream down her face, reflected in the low lighting of the ship.

He wills himself to slide out of the cot and to her side. His body protests, pain shooting everywhere it possibly can when his feet meet the metal floor of the ship. He ignores it as best he can. He stops in the space right next to her, not sure what to do, exactly. 

“Hey, none of that--” He begins, voice still raspy. She sits on the edge of the cot and wraps her arms around him. He slides down to meet her face to face, kneeling. Her arms slide around his neck, gripping him tightly, a little painfully. He gently moves his arms around her torso, overly aware of the damage still healing. She cries in the crook of his neck. 

“We made it, we all made it--” He soothes, allowing a hand to go up to the back of her head and stroking her matted, singed hair. He imagines she'll have to cut it after she heals. 

This would have terrified him, not so long ago. This closeness. The vulnerability. But he wants only to be there for her, as she has pulled him from the depths.

She cries for her fear and for the mentor she lost to the dark side even before she knew her. Kreia may have been the biggest pain in the ass for Atton (and everyone else), but the Exile always held a certain reverence for the old crone and her wisdom, even if they didn’t agree on anything. Kreia loved her in a way that no one else had, after all she had done, after the destruction in her wake. Kreia was the only one to defend her when the council belittled her, berated her for doing what she thought was right. Kreia was the betrayer, but Kreia loved Meetra, in her own, twisted, terrible, manipulative way. And it hurts to kill someone who loves you. 

She cries for the last of the Jedi, who are no longer in the galaxy or even a part of the Force, due to Kreia. She cries to release the pain from the deaths of the mentors she had in the council, those who truly taught her and respected her. She cries to release the anger she had at those who claimed to be servants of the light side but so clearly hated her. She cries for Atris, who loved her once, and then fell, quietly, in the wake of everything. 

And, the Exile weeps for the planet that was finally, finally blown into oblivion, into its final rest, where no one can hurt it or the people that once inhabited it anymore. The pain of the torment it endured remains in those who were there and will never forget for as long as they remain alive, but it is no more. It can rest, like the rest of the things she has destroyed. 

As the tears unceasingly continue, and she breaks in a million pieces in his arms, the Exile whispers to Atton in his ear. 

“I love you, I was so afraid to lose you, I love you--” She repeats it like a chant, quietly, so only he can hear. As if the galaxy will be lost if she stops saying it. As if she will be lost if she stops. 

Atton reaches out with his mind, feebly. He sees images of his broken body, the feeling of being held by him as he lost consciousness… Fear, overwhelming fear. He feels exactly what he did not allow himself to hope for. He feels her love for him, burning inside her. He exhales. He doesn’t quite believe it- how? Why? After everything- 

She pulls away slightly, and looks him in the eyes. And she kisses him with abandon. No gentleness, but fire, driven by the fear of loss. Were he in his normal state of mind, he would playfully scold her that this is not very Jedi-like at all, but instead he kisses back, finding that this is all he wanted, and all he needs. 

In the morning, Mical finds Atton asleep on the floor next to her, sitting against her cot. Her hand draping across his shoulder as she sleeps, his flesh hand clutching at her like a life-line.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now this is technically where the story ends, but I couldn't help but keep going after this.


	11. XI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is where it gets a little spicy.

The entire crew is on Telos, save T3, the Exile, and Atton, who decide to stay on the ship for the night. The others were given quarters from the Republic, but the Exile and Atton refused, making an excuse about wanting to keep the ship, lest Telos lose it again. The others raise an eyebrow, but let them stay with no comments. They are recovering still, Atton and the Exile, but keep in close proximity, neither letting the other out of view for very long, if at all. 

They play a lot of pazaak, and chatter on into the night, the Exile yawning before Atton even thought about sleep. 

“... You wanna go to bed?” he asks, looking up from his cards. She shrugs. 

“I don’t want to, but I think I should try, at least.” She laughs lightly. 

“I was winning anyway.” He quips, standing. It takes him a fair amount of effort to get to standing, the residual internal injuries mostly to blame, but it gets a little easier with every passing day. He’s mostly just stiff and sore, the scar tissue freshly formed. The cuts, gashes and bruises are mostly healed at this point, only the worse injuries remaining. He saunters to the Exile and offers her a hand. She hoists herself up, leaning heavily to her left side, the place of her remaining injuries, She finds it difficult to move as fast as she’s used to, which he can tell frustrates her. 

She is standing, and peers at him, eyes wondering. 

“You can sleep in the pilot’s chair, if you want.” He offers. She shakes her head, and grabs his hand, pulling him along. 

She takes him to the dormitories, the one that Visas and Mira took. He is confused, why would she--

She uses the force to lift two of the mattresses off the bunks and into the middle of the floor, side by side. She hobbles to a storage compartment and pulls out a large, deceptively soft blanket and throws it over both mattresses. 

He scrunches his eyebrows. “Oh, so now we’re playing sleepover--” His tone is light, but his pulse quickens.

“I don’t think I can sleep without you here.” She says, quietly. His heart breaks, then is rebuilt all over again. “And I don’t think my leg will heal right if I sleep in a chair. But you don’t have to, if you don’t want to--” By this point, he’s already taken off his boots and jacket, leaving only the soft pants he’s been existing in (see, Jedi robes are good for one thing and one thing only), and his shirt. 

The Exile lowers herself to the bed, achingly slow, and removes her boots and her outer robes, then, inner robes, leaving only a thin shirt (white, and almost see through in this light, he thinks, delighted at the fact that she isn’t wearing a bra and this chill of the ship makes that very apparent) and her underwear. 

He strips off his shirt, too, then. He hasn’t slept in a proper bed, in years, probably, and he wants her warmth on his bare skin, if she decides to.

He lets her settle under the covers before he lies down, inching closer and closer to her until she rolls to face him, her arms pulling him into her. 

Her hand ghosts down his chest, and up again, and settles over his sternum, she nuzzles into the crook of his neck, her hot breath rolling over his throat. 

((his mind begins to fill with images of how this can go- he puts up his cards in his head and hopes she didn’t see))

She smirks to herself. Then ghosts her hand down his chest again, a little lower this time. 

His breath hitches and she chuckles to herself. 

“... And I thought I was the one lacking subtlety.” He all but growls, voice low as her hand dips lower and lower, eventually brushing over his- 

“Maybe this is all a plot to bed you, hm? Become exiled from the Jedi, defeat some Sith lords just so I can bed the handsome pilot.” She retorts, voice silk to his ears. She moves to roll on top of him, but she moves faster than her body allows and she tenses in pain, and he takes her in his arms and settles her back on the mattress. He’s glad that he’s always been fast at healing, he feels at least mostly ready for this, save the aches, but they can go slow, but he wonders-

“Not sure you’re ready for as much activity as you’re going for, sweets.” He chides with humor and gentleness. Her face is flushed and bears frustration. 

“I’m fine, flyboy-” And she tries to move again, but her face screws up in pain. 

Atton chuckles, and pushes himself to a sitting position. “Flyboy, huh?” and she huffs, frustrated in more ways than one. 

“How about you let me handle the heavy lifting, yeah?” He replies to her frustration, voice low, teasing, almost. The electricity is back between them, taut, pulsing. 

She cocks an eyebrow at him, and he leans over to her, taking her arms once again and lifting her up to a sitting position as well. She faces him, moving slowly so that the pain will not overtake her. 

“What, are you just gonna sit here--” She teases him, a little too much pent up frustration in her tone. He pulls her legs up around him, firmly, but hopefully not in a way to cause her pain, and she instinctively wraps her arms around his neck. Her lips go to meet his, and she melts into him. 

“Just let me do the work, okay?”

His lips move, and meet the junction of her neck, her collarbone, and she gives little noises of pleasure. Her hands map around his skin, feeling scars, warmth--

He breaks for a second, his hands snaking under her shirt and pulling it over her head gently and exposing her to the room, to which his hands resume their place on her, and his lips travel downwards to her breasts, her nipples, all eliciting more sounds, which make him chuckle in self-satisfaction. 

This continues for a while, and her hands make their way to his hips, pulling at his pants, and he obliges, shifting her back on the mattress, and letting her expose him to the room, too. It's vulnerable, it's weird, but not uncomfortable. Just new. And exciting, as his body continues to remind him.

But of course, he won’t let her get off free, either. But he'll get her off, alright.

So after he becomes totally naked in front of her, his lips find their way back to her neck, and he trails lower and lower until he is able to free her completely to the room, as well.

And she is beautiful, and so much more than he deserves, but she would argue against it. 

He takes her in, scanning her body and she smirks at him. 

“Nothin you haven’t seen before.” 

“Ah, but there were clothes in the way, even in the beginning when you went marching around in your underwear for hours at a time. Quite the way to introduce yourself, I gotta tell you.” He teases, before spying the new scars on her right leg and torso. His eyes trace them, then his fingers. He hesitates, thoughts of lingering anxieties surfacing. Habit, mostly, but they are present nonetheless.

“... You’re sure you want *me*?” He asks, tone much more vulnerable than he intends. 

She goes to meet him at his level, but struggles. He offers a hand and she takes it, and moves to kneel next to him. 

“I’m literally sitting naked in front of you, wetter than I have been in years and moving more than I know I should because I want to fuck you, and have wanted to for a very long time. Yes, Atton, yes I do-” 

He has to chuckle at that, but she didn’t answer what he wanted her to. 

“I love you because of who you are, Atton, not despite it.” She responds. “Now, if you don’t do something soon-”

And he pulls her to him, and his adept fingers find just how true her words are. She moans in pleasure at the contact, and he is lost in her touch.


	12. XII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is some post-canon stuff that expands beyond our protagonist a little bit.

After everything goes down on Malachor, the band of ragtag Jedi go and reintroduce the Jedi teachings (well, most of them, at least) to Coruscant, taking the abandoned academy and breathing the Force back into it.

They all become Masters and teachers, mastering their craft far quicker than the Exile thought. 

Mical, unsurprisingly, is excellent with the younglings, teaching the first of them all sorts of history, which their young minds eat up like starving rancors. 

They learn the beginnings of combat from Mira and Visas, Mira connecting well with the younglings until they exhaust her patience, to which Visas then takes over, calming both the younglings and Mira with a subtle use of the force. Mira, although adept in battle, is never quite aware enough to catch Visas doing it. 

Visas sometimes overexerts herself, and Mira is the one to get her to rest. Sometimes forcefully, sometimes through deception, but mostly through a subtle kiss on the top of her head- meaning it’s time to go home. 

During their journey, Mira and Visas had found a closeness- stemming from quiet conversations, shared experiences and subtle, stolen moments- a brush of the hand here and glance there. The Exile and Atton thought they were invisible, but everyone on the ship knew exactly where they were headed. Visas and Mira, however- Atton was the first to pick up on it. (“Yeah, they’re gonna fuck.” “What??? Really-- I just thought they were really good friends--” “No straight woman looks at another woman with that amount of longing, Meet.”) 

Bao finds that he isn’t exactly good at teaching younglings- they move too slow for him and exhaust his patience. So, he sticks to creating and the upkeep of everything in the academy. He creates and invents, something that makes him content on a level he never thought he’d feel again. 

One day, a youngling approaches him as he fixes one of the emergency field generators. The young one looks at the array with a sparkle in his eyes- “Master, what is it that you’re fixing?” Bao explains quickly, eager to get back to work. The youngling peers in at the circuits, then asking what they are individually. Bao slows down, the youngling seeming very intent on learning what he was doing. Bao shows him all the intricacies of the panel, explaining what they do and how it all works together. The youngling nods. Soon, the entire afternoon is over, and the youngling is called away to the dormitories, thanking Bao for teaching him, and pausing as Bao finds his next words. “Good work.”  
The following days, the youngling joins him for the afternoon, seemingly always finding what he’s fixing next. 

One day, as Bao fixes the turbolift to the hangar for what seems like the twentieth time (unsure of why it always breaks, however…) the youngling comes to join him. Bao looks at him, then hands him the hydrospanner. “You’ve learned quite a bit. Let’s see what you know.” The youngling’s eyes light up, and he gets right to work. Bao watches as he problem-solves, finding the solution to be a fallen tool in the turbolift shaft. ‘So that’s where that went…” Bao sighs to himself, but is impressed with the youngling. 

The next day, in the morning council, he asks if the youngling’s master has been decided yet. The Exile smiles. “Yours.” She says. Bao spends the rest of the meeting smiling to himself. 

When the padawans were old enough, they would then move to the next levels of teachings, under Visas, Mira, Mical, and eventually Atton. Visas and Mira would again handle combat teachings, incorporating more of the Force. Mical would lead them through meditations and other teachings of the mind. Atton would teach the final classes, a mix of advanced combat and Force powers. 

Atton teaches in subtleties, fixing tiny issues in a student’s stance, or a mental block they had not yet mastered. The Force, he teaches, is a great ocean, where the surface is all lightness and warmth, and the depths hold power and darkness. It is a mix of right and wrong, and dark and light- but overall it is balanced- one cannot exist without the other, and to try to separate them is pointless. One leads to another in an unceasing circle, and it is the way of things.

Atton teaches how to dive further into the Force, to dip below the surface level and tap into the power, but all without losing oneself to the depths. It is dangerous- Mical tells him so every single time a student goes just a little too far and the Exile has to drag them back to balance. Atton always replies the same “If we don’t teach them here, where it’s safe, how the hell can they protect themselves out there, huh?” 

Mical always nods, begrudgingly, the Exile sitting with the student, meditating alongside them as they recover and learn from it. They haven’t lost anyone yet.

The Exile conducts the trials. Their first class of Jedi pass with flying colors, doubling their ranks. 

Then they all fall into routine. Morning council meeting, discussing whatever it is they needed to discuss. The assignment of any missions that need attention- they have become peacekeepers, these days. Those with missions will leave, the rest will teach. Then they will meditate at the end of the day, then retire to their homes, not too far from the academy. 

The Exile becomes distant. Atton notices as she sits in the council room. When she conducts the next series of trials. As she falls asleep next to him each night, her gaze lingering on him longer and longer, with more and more distance in her eyes.

He doesn’t know how to bring it up. She’s usually so open with them, all of them, but especially him. He feels, whatever it is, it isn’t about him, which brings some solace from the anxiety, but something is very wrong.


	13. XIII

He feels it. Today, something will happen. He wakes with the bad feeling in his entire being. 

The Exile spends time with everyone today, smiling and joking with them as usual. She meditates with Mical, she spars with Visas, she practices feeling the Force with Mira. She jokes with Bao in their own particular way, fixing one of the droids in the academy. She greets each and every one of the Jedi by name, smiling. Atton feels sick. Something is very, very, very wrong, though she is acting her usual self, just spending more time with her fellow Jedi. She avoids him most of the day, not meeting his eye and shielding her thoughts. 

Atton encounters T3 before he heads out for the day, the droid beeping at him incessantly, until he stops. 

“And just what is it that’s so important?” His dislike of droids hasn’t stopped. But T3 shows him a holo. 

“There’s not much time- I think she’s going to leave without me. There’s a chance she’ll take you, T3, and if she does- find help, if not me, the Republic-” 

Isn’t that Onasi? Why-? 

T3 replays one of the lines “I think she’s going to leave without me-” Atton’s bad feeling peaks. It was little known that the Admiral and Revan were together, before Revan vanished into thin air. Atton never gave it a second thought, however. 

In his most recent encounter of the Admiral, Atton had noticed the hole in the man’s heart, gaping. He felt Onasi’s entire being projecting his need for Revan’s return, his loss without her.

Atton’s heart falls into the pit of his stomach. He doesn’t know if he could survive that, knowing who he was; perhaps, still is, deep down.

“There you are- I was just about to head home.” The Exile finds Atton, a grim expression on his face. “What’s wrong?” 

“I dunno, how about you tell me?” he says, a little harsher than he means to. She plays dumb, although a quick expression of surprise and guilt envelopes her face. She takes his arm and pulls him to the path to exit the academy. She sticks close to him, her energy overtaking him. Even now, being close to her is intoxicating. He does not forget what he saw, and cannot ignore the feeling in the pit of his being, but he does not press it. He sees the inevitable, and does not wish to sour the present, especially when he knows he cannot stop what is coming. 

They arrive home and they prepare, eat and clean up after their meal. The chat about the day’s events, as if nothing is wrong. They laugh about the dumb things that some of the students say, things they would dare not say in any proximity of the academy. They play a game of pazaak, and he sweeps away the winnings. 

She then gives him a mischievous look, and the next thing he knows is that he’s pulling off her robes, she’s tearing at his, and they’re on the bed and she’s panting under him. Everything is far too fast, far too intense, filled with need and the undercurrent of the inevitable. 

They finish and they curl around each other like the first time. She kisses his cheek, reverently. He strokes his hand through her hair, sweaty and tangled, but still somehow attractive. 

His mind lulls to sleep in the afterglow. Usually, he lies awake until he is sure she’s asleep, but some force pulls him under much quicker than usual. 

He wakes a time later. It’s pitch black out, save the lights from the city around them. 

She isn’t next to him. The space where she slept is warm, and all that remains is her scent and the lack of her shape in the covers. 

He rips himself from the bed, only bothering to slide his pants back on before using the Force to track her. She’s on the Hawk, she’s lifting off--

He runs as fast as he can, bare feet on the metal grating of the pathway. He makes it to the hanger just as the engines engage and she zooms out of sight. He yells her name, knowing that it won’t make any difference. 

He runs to the terminal- maybe there’s a record of where--

The terminal had been wiped clean. He curses himself for teaching her all his slicing skills, and his piloting skills, while he’s at it. 

After far too long, he numbly returns home. On their kitchen table, lies a holopad. 

“I’m sorry. I love you.” 

He curses her to the sun and back, for pulling him out of the depths of his guilt and despair only for her to leave him someday with no explanation, and for making him love her so much that it feels like his heart has been taken along with her.

He understands the Admiral now, in more ways than he can fathom.

He goes off to find her the next evening, no explanation to his friends, the others, but by the way they look at him when he collects his belongings from the academy, they already know.


	14. XIV

Years pass. The Coruscant temple flourishes, especially with the addition of a couple of new masters as they hear about it- Juhani, Bastila and Jolee all coming out of their hiding places, hearing that things are different, and hopefully better, now. Jedi return to the galaxy, acting as peacekeepers once again. Atton's teachings of balance, however, cease with his absence. Something in him feels that it will have lasting consequences, and that the Jedi will eventually turn right back into the very thing that Revan rebelled against all those years ago. He cannot find it within himself to care.

Atton reverts to a past state- smuggling, pazaak, drinking, and the despair that’s always hounded him. 

However, the Exile’s influence would not escape him. Could not, no matter how hard he tried. He found himself helping the people in need along his wanderings, a couple of credits given here, a misunderstanding cleared there… 

He is no Jedi, never was, in his core, but the light will not leave now that she’s etched it in him alongside the blood on his hands. 

He dreams of her every night. He doesn’t wake panicked anymore, but the hurt never gets easier. 

Once, he woke to her voice in his head- “I found her-” but it fades as quickly as it happens. 

Something changed that day, but he wasn’t sure what. A very bitter part of him doesn't want to even pay it heed, just to spite her.

Eventually, he wanders back to the places they traveled, Korriban, desolate; Narr Shaddaa, just as desperate as he remembers; Dantooine, the locals recovering, but abandoned by the Jedi once and for all; Onderdon- a mess, but stabilizing. He arrives in Telos, feeling drawn there. 

He arrives in the docks, only to be greeted by a couple of Republic brass. Atton rolls his eyes. He doesn’t want to have to deal with this, shouldn't have to deal with this. 

“Master Rand?” He never liked being called that. 

“What?” He snaps. The Republic officer coughs before replying. 

“Admiral Onasi requests a meeting with you, sir.” 

“Oh, does he?” Atton quips. “If he wants to meet, it’s on my terms.” The officer looks wide eyed, and panicked. Atton remembers the feeling of being a new recruit, getting all the shit jobs and not knowing what to do when some older person didn’t bow down to the Republic insignia. But that was a long time ago. Atton wonders why Onasi wants to see him. 

“Tell him to meet me in the cantina.” 

When Atton sees the Admiral come in, he is suddenly aware of how old he is, how old they both are. The Admiral is in remarkably good shape for someone who’s been a career man almost his whole life, and for someone who went head to head with the dark side on multiple occasions. The only evidence that the Admiral is nearing his mid-60s is the greying at his temples, the deep, dark circles under his eyes and the tired lines on his face. Even then, age becomes the man, a certain presence that commands respect coming with it. 

That’s what catches Atton’s attention- the dark circles that reflect the ones under his eyes and the lines on his face. Atton always considered himself ruggedly handsome, using that when he needed to. But the dark circles under his eyes have gotten worse over the years and the lines that once faded have become permanent. (And, much to his chagrin, he’s also noticed the occasional grey hair, which just isn’t fair, he’s only now just pushing his forties…) 

“Master Rand.” the Admiral greets, stoically. 

“Don’t call me that, Fleet.” Atton chides. Onasi sits down on the stool next to him, motioning to the bartender to pour him a drink. 

“Wasn’t sure you remembered me.” Carth shrugs. 

Atton laughs, eyes full of the memories from way back when. They served together. Atton left with Saul, which he can say with absolute certainty that Carth never found out about. “Can’t say I’ll ever forget. I gave you more than enough trouble.” 

“You sure did.” Carth chuckles. “All those games of Pazaak, and you cleaning me out of credits every other paycheck for a while there.” 

“Always won fair and square.” Atton takes another swig of his drink. “How’d you even know I’m here?” 

Carth’s face grows far more serious. “Well, you weren’t exactly hard to track.” Atton had done that on purpose, just in case the Exile-- “--And I know you’ve felt it too.” 

Atton feigns confusion. “Felt what?” But he knows, it prickles at him, but his bitterness and hurt makes him ignore it.

“They’re coming back-- I’m not Force sensitive like any of you, but I just have this-”

“-Gut feeling, yeah.” Atton hasn’t allowed himself to consider that it might be true, even though he knows it is. 

Carth exhales, worry clouding his face. “I haven’t seen her in so many years... “ he trails off, thinking about whoever it is that Revan became at the end of the Jedi Civil War. Atton feels Carth’s thoughts- love, fear, lust, guilt, loneliness and a dash of betrayal- all too familiar. 

Carth bitterly chuckles. “Are you as scared as I am? I mean, I know she’s gonna come back, but I don’t know if that means in one piece.” 

Atton hadn’t talked about the Exile in all this time. He’d encountered a couple of the other Jedi, and they’d asked, but he wouldn’t go further than a “still haven’t found her yet”.

Atton takes another swig. He has a lot of mixed emotions about this. He misses her so terribly, so deeply, it feels like some part of himself is gone. The feeling hasn’t subsided, like he thought it might over time. If anything, it’s become background noise in everything he does, like the ticks in the power couplings, like the pazaak game in his head, where if he isn’t thinking about something else, he’s thinking about her and all the memories she’s a part of. It makes him ache.

He then feels a mix of the bitterness and guilt. What did he do? Was he not enough? Why didn’t she bring him with her, if he did everything else right? What if she got hurt? What if Revan comes back in one piece, and his Exile comes back cold on the medical bay table? What if they aren’t even together? But worse, what if whatever they found out there, where they surely must be-- what if it changed the both of them? Revan, again a Sith lord, and instead of Malak this time, it’s Meetra, grey skin and yellow eyes, darkness in her wake, hatred in her eyes becoming all the things he’s feared about himself… 

He gathers himself from his thoughts, dipping into the Force to steady himself- focusing on the life around him, the noises of the cantina. Part of him hates that this has become his habit- dipping into the Force to calm himself, relying on it, and using it just in case he'd be able to feel her through it again-

“Yeah.” He says simply. The admission releases some of the tension that’s been building up inside him over the last few years. 

The bartender brings them both another drink. Atton offers a small toast. “To being the fools they left behind.” He says bitterly. 

“And the ones they’ll come home to.” 

The night ends with Carth heading back to his Republic station, and Atton returning to his ship, a small freighter he had picked up on Nar Shaddaa after winning a pazaak game. It’s a little cramped, compared to the Hawk, but it’s comfortable enough- especially after he cleaned out the remnants of the previous owner. 

He gets in, strips down and goes to shower in the fresher. He takes a long look at his face, running his hands over the circles under his eyes, and prodding at the other lines on his face. He pointedly ignores the greys popping up around his temples. He should probably shave soon, too. His eyes scan down to the upper part of his torso- has he always been this ragged and worn? Muscles are all still there, still working despite the amount of scars, but he looks tired. He blinks. When she was here, and he’d be in front of the mirror, she’d wrap her arms around him and hug him from behind, hands wandering as she smirked at him, jokingly calling him vain before kissing his shoulder. 

He sighs. Maybe someday the memories will fade and he can finally be left alone and not be haunted by her anymore. 

He'd thought about the rest of his life, without her, on particularly dark nights, after far too much thinking and wishing her return. He knows he has very little to offer the galaxy on his own, and that the only good he's ever done was because of her influence. But he cannot bring himself to seek his own end. No, the unbreakable spirit within him will not allow it- not while he can still feel her through their bond, albeit distantly, only a faint suggestion of a whisper, most of the time. He knows he will not find peace until she does- likely becoming some anomaly in the Force, raggedly looking for her, searching for her yet and trying to protect her, until she herself becomes one with the Force. He cannot die until she does, and even then, he wants to feel they are destined to find peace together, knowing he is foolishly caught between being willing to lay down his life for her and being unable to live without her. 

He steps into the shower, letting the lukewarm water coat his body (and, with any hope, wash away some of the anxiety, though it never helps). 

He finishes up, slips on the minimal amount of clothing to be considered decent if he needed to suddenly make a break for it for some reason.

He flops onto the pilot's chair, pulling a thick blanket on top of him before allowing the Force to calm his mind and allowing him to sleep, lightly. It is not a restful sleep. It never is. 

He wakes in the wee hours of the morning, something in him thrusting him into consciousness before he can really register it. 

His feet follow the Force, which tells him to go to the next landing pad, which bares the silhouette of an all too familiar ship… 

His eyes register what he’s seeing. His heart pounds inside his chest. 

The ramp extends to the landing pad. He doesn’t realize he’s holding his breath. 

T3 rolls down the ramp first, beeping gleefully as it sees Atton. Atton rolls his eyes out of habit. 

Then he sees a figure emerge at the top of the ramp, tall, commanding, but not condescending. He recognizes her, from long ago, when she bore a much different position than now. She steps into the light, hair tied up in a messy fashion and scar down the right side of her face. She has dark circles under her eyes too, and her face appears to be bruised and battered. She limps forward, favoring her left leg. Nothing dulls the power that practically buzzes around her. Kreia had once said that Revan was as if to stare into the heart of the Force. And he realizes that the old crone was right. 

“Atton Rand, I presume.” she says. Oh, he remembers that voice, the one aboard the command ship that only got darker and darker as the war went on. It makes his blood go cold, but he feels no darkness within her now, only the darkness that she has faced. 

“Revan.” he breathes. “Uh, yeah, that’s me all right.” 

She has aged gracefully, even with all she has done. She’s pale and bruised and battered and weak in that, but the fire behind her eyes is something to behold. For a mere second, he’s almost jealous of Carth, but then remembers just who he waits for. 

He reaches out for her, his Exile, Meetra, but finds--

“She’s in the med bay.” Revan says. “I’d have carried her out, but I don’t have the strength yet.” She says, almost bitterly. 

Atton’s heart drops again. No, he’s had nightmares about this, no, no no no no no--

He nearly runs onto the ship, weaving the halls with familiar ease, then he sees her, bloody and battered, lying on the med bay table, just as he had after the final battle of Malachor. 

He is about to weep, but then sees the light rise and fall of her chest. He breathes all of the Force out of him and into healing her-- he was no Mical, but he had gotten worlds better than he used to be. He remembers her telling him once that Revan was an excellent soldier, but a terrible healer, and he wishes that one particular piece of information about Revan was false, as the other rumors he'd heard seemed to be. 

“Patched her up as best I could, but I’m not very good, not even now.” Revan calls to him. “She’ll be alright, though. ‘Specially now that you’re here.” 

He scans over her, trying to decide whether or not to move her. He finds a couple of broken ribs, lacerations, and, Force, a badly configured cybernetic right leg from the thigh down. Nothing internal, other than that. He wills the Force to her ribs, hearing them knit together back in place after a few minutes. 

He then takes her in his arms, intent on taking her to the medical facility. She still needs more help than he can give. 

He feels her breath in his arms again and feels such relief. Her warmth is welcome and feels good against his skin. 

Revan smiles to herself as she sees him lift her with such reverence, such gentleness. 

“She never stopped talking about you, you know.” Revan comments, hobbling down the ramp alongside him. “Chattered on about you for hours, if I let her.” 

“All true things, I hope.” 

“Nothing but.” Revan smiles slightly, seeing the Republic soldiers moving in to see what this new ship is. “From one ex-Sith to another-” she says, voice low, “You’d better make sure she’s taken care of.” 

Atton isn’t sure if that’s encouragement or a threat. 

“It’s a bit of both, let me assure you. You may have mastered all my techniques, back then, but I can and will still break you, if need be.” Revan says, naturally seeing his process of thought without even having to use the Force, and threatening him in an easy, self-assured tone. Despite not feeling any darkness within her, Atton still pales at the threat, which makes Revan smirk and his blood run cold. A Republic officer hails her. “Ah, here’s my connection. It was nice chatting with you, but I have my own pilot to fling myself into the arms of.” 

“Ma’am, this is an official landing pad-”

“Yeah, yeah, take me to your leader.” She says, already walking with the officer to the Republic Headquarters. 

Atton carries his Exile to the medical center, to which the staff gets right to work on healing her and fixing her botched cybernetic. It takes hours. Atton sits in the waiting area, not allowing himself to think of anything else but her, and silently using the Force to aid her healing. 

He is allowed in her room, after a while. She’s still unconscious. He pulls a chair right to her bedside and waits for her to wake, clutching at her hand with both his cybernetic and flesh ones. 

“... Meetra?” She blinks open after several hours. Her hand finds him immediately. 

“Atton--” She breathes. He moves to sit on the edge of her bed. She looks pale and thin and bruised, but her eyes glow at him. She struggles to sit up, and he rushes to help her, but she instead grabs his arms and pulls him to her. 

“I didn’t want to leave you, but I had to-- what we saw, what we face out there-- I couldn’t see you die-- I had to keep you safe, even if that sounds selfish because I know you’d have been by my side the entire time, but you said it yourself they take down the allies first and I cannot lose you-- Atton, I’m so sorry, I never wanted to but I had to--” 

She pulls into him, squeezing, as if she can’t believe he’s here. He feels her desperation. He wraps his arms around her in turn. He strokes her hair, grown long and unruly. A little gray at the roots. She was still beautiful, even though he was so very, very bitter that she left him behind.

“Hey, hey--” He begins. She’s already felt the hurt, the guilt under his card counting. He hates this damned Force bond sometimes. 

“Force, I’m so sorry, Atton, didn’t want any of this, just wanted you to be safe and alive--” 

“Look, I’m not sure if I’ll ever forgive you-” He begins, letting a wave of bitterness lace his words. She loosens her hold. This was not going according to plan but she cannot blame him. It's been years, and she sees the hurt in the lines on his face.

“Then why are you here...?” She says, wondering where to go next. His eyes meet hers and refuse to budge. 

“-But you’re back, so that’s a start.” He finishes, grateful for the fire behind her words.

She reads him, just a little, careful not to overstep the boundary that they’d established so long ago. She doesn’t know where she stands with him anymore. It was foolish of her, perhaps, to assume he would just come running when she stumbled back in and then everything would be okay, back to normal and they could get back to living their lives. It’s even a miracle that she is alive. But he’s here, still loosely holding onto her, his own pain apparent, but he's here and maybe the bitterness will fade away, and they can move on, together. 

He moves closer to her, and allows himself to release some of the hurt in an exhale- it’ll take time for this to all get back to some sense of normalcy- he’s so used to being alone and so angry about all of it, but if they could do it before, they could probably do it again. She taught him to let go of the past, before. He'll do it again.

“I’m here because I waited for you. That’s what you need, right? Somebody to patch you up, take you home after some evil planets decided to chew you up and spit you back out-” He falls back into their familiar banter. She feels the warmth beneath his words.

“And I love you. I’m mad and bitter at you for leaving me and not letting me protect you like you said you would. But I still love you. And I don't think I''l ever stop, even if I want to.” 

She smiles, for the first time in a very long time. His heart swells at the sight. She grasps him against her and he feels how thin she’s become. He will not ask what they did to her, she can tell him of her own accord. He wonders if he even wants to know.

“Yeah, but maybe I should’ve fallen in love with Mical, though, I mean he’s the better healer.” She smirks, hoping she doesn’t push too far, but saying it nonetheless- trying to meet him in the banter. 

He sharply laughs. “Yeah, well you’re the one who was passed out cold on the med table, you don’t get to complain about my healing skills.” 

She takes a brief moment to scan over her body. She felt… better. Not great, still stiff and sore and not at all used to the cybernetic leg, but better. “You did a good job, though. You've mastered it while I was gone. Even did well with-”

“Yeah, what the hell is that?” He exclaims, letting his hands rest on her hips, her familiar hips. Fantastic memories start pouring back, all involving her hips, bare. 

“Legion of archaic Sith. They sliced and diced a little more than I could handle, but they’re all dead now.” She says, the memory pouring through her like a sieve. The darkness that passes over her face alarms him. It fades as she seems to look into him. Atton nods, as if he understands, even though he knows he won’t ever be able to.

“Good. So, is it all over now, then?” 

She shrugs. “For now. I don't think it’ll be a problem for our lifetime, but in thousands of years… I fear it’s going to be worse than we ever imagined.” 

Atton sees the fear in her eyes, but also a fair amount of triumph. He pulls her to his chest, gently, and she rests her face in the crook of his neck. It feels familiar and comfortable, and he begins to feel much better than he has in a long time.

“Well, that’s their problem, then.” He says, no trace of apology in his voice. “You- we can finally rest.” He exhales, realizing this for the first time. No more Sith chasing after them, for real now. 

She nods, worry still plaguing her, but relaxing into his touch more. She touches his face, letting her fingers brush down his jaw and then though his hair. She smiles when she touches the gray, but does not mention it. 

“You've only gotten more handsome. And you smell good.” She mutters. He laughs at her, cradling her, holding her and getting lost in the feeling of it. Her hands map his back and shoulders once again. He wonders if he’s changed much, to her. 

“At least one of us does.” He quips. “Oh how the tables have turned…” 

She snorts, rolling her eyes. “Ass.” 

“You missed me.” 

“More than anything.” She kisses his neck, causing his breath to catch. He peers at her, smirking, eyes going cloudy with desire. She echoes his smirk. 

“Oh, so we’re going there already?” He chuckles, kissing her forehead gently. “No offense, but I don’t think you’re up to that yet.” 

“Just kiss me.”


	15. BONUS

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> here have some Revan too bc I have no self control

Revan, after speaking with the docking officials for what feels like ten hours (and is more likely about ten minutes, but time goes slow when she just wants to run to him-), is allowed to head up to the main Republic office. They told her that he’d be on duty in just a couple of hours, and that she should wait while they do a sweep of her ship, since she had T3 voice lock the astrogation again and they don’t know where she came from. She just sighed and told them to do whatever, but if she caught them trying to take anything… The glow of her eyes told them all they needed to know. 

So she’s walking hobbling up the walkways to the headquarters, soldiers double-taking as she walks past. 

She didn’t exactly like being back in the eye of everyone again. 

But then again, it’s just something she has to deal with, like everything else. 

Her hand instinctively goes to her lightsabers, resting on her belt over her tattered robes, which she just realized are coated in dust and dirt and blood and sweat... She knows it’s stupid, she just saved the galaxy yET AGAIN and is worried about how she looks for some mere mortal… She smirks to herself. He’s not just some man, however she likes to laugh about it. He’s given her such strife over the time they’ve known each other, but if there’s anything he is (they both are, really), he’s stubborn, headstrong and the most dedicated lover she’s ever had. He would wait for her for another ten years, if he had to, just to see her face again in a brief moment. 

And he won’t care that she just rolls in looking like a bantha just shat her out. 

She gets to the main control room, which is helmed by an older officer, who raises a greying eyebrow at her. 

“And who exactly are you to just come waltzing in here, like you own the place, huh?” He threatens, raising his blaster. 

“How would I have gotten this far if I didn’t have a reason to be here?” She retorts, seeing the controls glow behind him, and a fairly comfortable looking chair right in front of them, with a view of the Taris sunrise blooming over the horizon. 

“... Fair enough.” The officer settles into his chair, a cup of caffe in hand, sipping at the hot liquid despite the steam protruding from it. 

Revan locks eyes with him. She can also pull power moves, thank you very much. 

She sits down in the chair she was eyeing and turns to face the sunrise. It’s very pleasant, she hasn’t seen one like this since she left… She pushes down any of the anguish from her wanderings, no sense in falling apart now-

“Who are you anyways?” She swivels the chair to face the officer. 

“Hero of the Republic, ex-Sith lord, savior of the core…” She lists. 

He cocks an eyebrow at her again, clearly not believing her. 

“Onasi’s wife.” The officer’s face light up in surprise, with a side feeling of foot in his mouth. 

They aren’t really married. She didn’t stick around long enough for them to get there, although she knew he was close to just whisking her off to make it official, even when he claimed he wasn’t. But she saw the ring. 

“Oh, I didn’t realize, Force, you really are as fierce as they say-- You’ve been away for a long time--” 

“Mhm.” 

“Do you want me to wake him? He’ll be down in about two hours for duty, but I can get someone to take you--”

“No, let him sleep. It’ll be the last full night’s rest he gets for a while.” She cackles internally, seeing the brief surprised look on the officer’s face, which is soon replaced by a look of relief. 

“Good, he could use it. Had a stick up his ass for as long as I can remember…”

“Sounds just like him.” So they begin to trade stories of him, which makes her heart ache to see him all the more. 

The officer looks down at his watch, nodding to himself. 

“No offense, but from what I can tell, I don’t want to be here when he gets here.” He chuckles. Revan nods, it’s likely very smart. She isn’t sure if she’ll be yelled at or immediately thrown against the console and ravaged until she can’t remember her own name (but this time, it’s fun and the Jedi council had nothing to do with it) or something in-between or different altogether. She appreciates the officer knowing. 

“Thanks.” She nods as he exits. She swivels back to watch the sunrise and enjoy the light. 

She hears footsteps down the hall, distinctively his- with even weight on each foot and fairly even strides. She hears the familiar crack in his wrist as he presses the button to open the door. 

The door opens. She feels his annoyance that the room is seemingly empty. 

“Why the hell is no one on duty?--” he mutters under his breath. 

She smiles, then pivots in the chair to face him. 

“Oh no, he was here. Just thought he’d let me take over.” She says, enjoyment in every word, and double that for seeing the look on his face. 

He positively melts in his place, expression gobsmacked and in disbelief. His eyes narrow at her. 

“... Is it really you?” he almost whispers. She stands and limps up to him as smoothly as she can, so that he can feel her hot breath on his chin. She looks him dead in the eye, smirking. She slips her hands around his torso, pulling into her. 

“No, just another ghost come to haunt you.” She teases, proceeding to kissing him, gently at first, then increasingly fervent as he seems to have remembered that he has hands and his hands miss their place on the small of her back and he meets her desire in turn. Her arms move to his neck, pulling him as close as he can possibly be.

They break after a while, breathless and feeding off the other’s warmth. 

“Missed that mouth of yours, Onasi.” She flirts, running her hand down his jaw. He chuckles at her, resting his hand on top of hers. 

“That’s Admiral Onasi, now.” Her eyes light up. 

“I like the sound of that.” He kisses her again, this time gentle and filled with the relief of having her in his arms again. Her face falls a bit as she prepares her next words. “I owe you perhaps the biggest apology in the ‘verse right about now--”

He cuts her off with a kiss, short, but gentle and pointed. “I know you had to leave, I know you had to go find something and destroy it. And I don’t blame you. Took me a while to come to terms with that, but I don't blame you.”

This takes her by surprise. She expected to be arguing with him. She can feel the prickles of old anger from him, old hurt, but replaced by the warmth of trust. 

“I would’ve done the same thing.” He continues and she sees a wisdom behind his eyes, replacing some of the stubbornness she was familiar with. 

She smiles at him, genuinely this time, no ulterior motive (although she's sure the lust will return very soon). She embraces him fully, letting her whole body lean into him. 

“I love you.” She states. 

“Love you, too.” 

He moves, to which she releases some of the tightness of her hold. He lifts his comlink. 

“Admiral Onasi here- Someone can cover my post for the rest of the week. Something’s come up.” 

“Yeah, heard your wife’s back--” His eyes go wide in surprise- wife? She shrugs somewhat coyly. This works for a proposal, she guesses. 

“Tell me it isn’t true.” She smirks. He nods, considering this, and a wide smile overtakes his entire being. 

“Yeah, my wife--” The comlink then becomes filled with gleeful articulations of various kinds- mostly ones congratulating him for her return at last, and the occasional one telling him to enjoy getting laid again. 

She quickly snatches the comlink from his hand- “Oh, he will.” 

The link goes wild, with younger officers whooping and hollering about. He blushes, then takes the comlink back. “Onasi out.” 

“Is that a promise?” He asks, voice low and causing her temperature to rise already. She wants him-- 

“Rip my clothes off, Admiral.” 

And they go back to his apartment for him to do just that. 

They’re married within the week, only waiting for Dustil to make it into the system from the Outer Rim. 

Dustil greets Revan with a smile. “Finally, my dad hasn’t stopped moping over you since you left.” Revan smiles at him and offers a hug, which Dustil accepts, although a little hesitantly. Dustil has turned into a fine young man- he helped to shut down the Sith on Korriban, and has been helping other exiles in the outer rim. 

Revan and Carth look at him with pride. He’s come a long way. 

Revan knows she will never be a mother to him, however. At best, she’ll be the cool Jedi who’s fucking his dad. And she’ll offer training if he ever asks. But, all in all, he’s just glad his dad has some form of happiness again. 

It’s a small ceremony, only Dustil, the Exile and Atton for company. The Exile officiates, speaking of love that never fades, that never stops, come what may. Atton looks at her the entire time she speaks, a look in his eye that’s almost begging for her to to be speaking of him. 

(and she is, she tells him through the glint in her eye)

Revan and Carth kiss, passionately. Dustil’s face contorts and he looks away. The Exile laughs. Atton’s ears ring with her laughter, and his soul is warmed. 

The ceremony ends. Revan thanks her old friend, smiling and putting a hand on the Exile’s shoulder. 

Reven whispers to her as Atton and Carth talk a ways away. “I can always return the favor…” the older woman says, eyes glancing at the Exile’s pilot. 

“Not yet. I have to fix ‘us’, I think.” Revan figured that the Exile might run into more hurt than she intended. Revan nods, knowingly. 

“It’ll take time, but it’ll happen. You’re both young.” 

“We’re in our forties, Revan.” 

“You’re young.” She repeats. “And both of you have so much more baggage than I can even remember. Granted, helps that the council gave me that whole memory wipe, and that’s not to say that I don’t get glimpses… But it always affected you more strongly. And just from looking at him--” Revan looks to Atton again, “His heart’s about as hard as a cloud.” The Exile shrugs. 

“You’re not wrong…” 

“He’s soft. Gentle, on the inside, as much as he and his experiences want to argue against it. And he’ll follow you to hell and back.” Revan frowns. Meetra always knew Revan was strong in the Force, but to be able to pull truths out of the Force current surrounding someone was next-level. “... I almost feel bad that he got caught up in everything, Sith things, and whatnot. But if he didn’t, you wouldn’t be inescapable parts of your journeys. And besides, he’s got an unbreakable spirit, just like you. Which is why you’ll be fine.” 

Meetra nods, and looks at him as he congratulates Carth and assumably gives a quip or two. He does have an unbreakable spirit that seems as though it was meant for the light, even if it’s been oversaturated with darkness so that it’ll never quite lose it’s stain. And he loves her- would die for her and almost did, so many times. 

She hurt him, by leaving him behind. But she knows she did the right thing that kept him alive, and safe. Of that, she has no doubt. 

Carth catches Revan’s eyes and gravitates toward her, to which she gives a wolfish grin. Revan pats Meetra on her shoulder. 

“Just go elope. Or fuck each other's brains out, and you'll be fine.” Revan tells her before joining Carth. 

"You were a terrible, terrible Jedi, Revan." Meetra rolls her eyes, and gives a moment of thought. She doesn’t have a plan now, at all. But she’s really not the marrying type, and something tells her Atton might lose his mind at the mere mention. Or maybe not. She truly doesn’t know. They never thought they’d get this far, both as individuals and together.

So she crosses to him, and he smirks at her and opens his mouth to say something, to which she stops him with a kiss, that he surprisedly melts into.

“-- Feeling the occasion, huh?” He quips, snaking his arms around her. Everyone else is gone. It is just them. 

“What would you say if I asked you to elope?” 

Atton sputters, taken off guard. “Uh, I, uh… Well, I’d kinda hope to do it a little different than that, but the end result’s the same.” His face goes red, and she smiles at him.

“Okay, so then we won’t.” And he exhales, panic within him dissipating. 

“... We could. If you want.” He says, voice quiet. She shakes her head. 

“No, if there’s another way you want to do it, I want to do it that way, too.” she says. “I’ve taken a lot of choices away from you.” 

And he riles up to defend his choices, and she knows he’s going to, but then she stops him with another kiss, that he frustratedly pulls back from after a few seconds.

“Everything I’ve done is my choice--” And seeing the look on her face, a mixture of affection and light, he backs down. “But, in any case, it’d be your choice too. I mean, with me.” He stumbles over his words and she touches his jawline gently. “This is a bad, bad proposal. I blame you.” He says in good humor. 

“I’m aware.” She retorts. “But in any case, let’s go somewhere. Take the Hawk, and leave for somewhere where it’s just you and me, lots of juma and whatever else it is we want.”

“- Oh, I’ll tell you one thing I want-” And he whispers things into her ear that make her eyes go wide, then cause a little smirk to form on her lips. She drags him to the Hawk, and they are left to their own agenda for the remainder of their lifetimes.


End file.
